Letting go - and letting in

I am feeling a little tired today- the first day I had not bounced out of bed before the 6am alarm. We are practicing one hour of asana each morning and it was a stronger class today which got the energy moving, but still I feel a little flat. Not as bright eyed and bushy tailed as the past 7 days.  That is ok, each day is different and everything is impermanent so it is just sitting with it and noticing, playing witness to the body and the mind and taking what I need to refill. I am not even sure what I want to write about today.

Yesterday I wrote about one of the key lessons Mark teaches – Never Give Up....I hope you liked Arthur’s story as it bought tears to my eyes to watch it. The other lesson is let go and let in. And on thinking about that, I think my last 18 months has been about letting go. Really and truly surrendering to the present moment, being in the flow and following my heart. No real navigation system or plan but an internal knowing of what to do and where to go. Letting go for a control freak like me can be kinda of scary. Ok, perhaps more than kinda, a whole lotta of can’t-breath-going-to-suffocate moments more like it. Letting go can mean so many things and to me it has been on so many levels. 

Some R&R...

I perhaps started this trip with the intention of letting go of an identity I was falling into rather than carving for myself. I wanted to let go of the ideals that I felt were placed on me and to discover what was truly important to me. I want to let go of the “things” and “stuff” that filled my life and was becoming increasingly less and less satisfying and I wanted to let go of the limiting beliefs I placed on myself that were holding me back. I feel like I have been letting go of so many things, and sometimes I forget about the letting in part. I place high expectations on myself and am my own worst critic, and often forget one of the best pieces of advice I received many years go from a colleague and now close friend from IKEA “be gentle with yourself.” But after my weekend of lazing around the resort, having a massage and doing not much else, when most of the girls took off for a weekend of sights and adventure – I am thinking that maybe I am getting better at the letting in. Perhaps I do take what I need and when I need it, if that is time off, a rest, a massage or even a beer at the end of long week of training, I am slowly learning the art in balancing. Letting go AND letting in.