Letting Go

Attachments. There are many in our lives. Some, like family and friends, are important. Others get in our way on our spiritual journeys.

I like to lead, organize, plan--programs, events, organizations. I prefer to lead by putting together a team, working with others. That's fun for me--and it brings people into my life in energetic ways, working toward mutual goals.

So now I feel called to give up doing this for others. I need to do it for myself. That is, prepare and plan my healing story presentation (which I had a chance to give for a small group in January). I need a team. A friend offered to put together a DVD with my nature photographs, words and/or music perhaps. That is one tool I'd like to have. I can rent a projector that works with my laptop--and a screen if one is not available where I would give the programs. This sounds like a project. Right?! One where I could use my organizational skills, right.

But--there's that word. This is a story that isn't pretty. It's about sharing intimate details--not in writing, an easier way for me. It's about a spiritual journey that began with horrific memories that I didn't want to remember. It about fear, loss, terror. It's not the story that fits with who I look like to the outside world.

I like for my world to look as lovely as the scene in which I'm standing in the first photograph. There I'm comfortable talking about my blessings and the beauty of God's creation. That's a wonderful story. I can and do include Nature's beauty in my healing journey story. I'm not sure I would be writing this without the wonders of yellow centered violets, green, green moss, lichen covered rocks, and woolly worms--white fluffy clouds and blue skies. But the stories that integrate my strong bond with nature aren't pretty ones. I'd like to turn my back on them.

However, they are there and are part of my journey. I heard Scott Brown, the senator from Massachusetts interviewed about his memoir. He said that he wouldn't change a thing--and his story isn't pretty--that all that had happened to him made him who he is. Well, I wouldn't say that I wouldn't change a thing, but that I cannot change any of my past. I can have a different relationship to it, and that's worth exploring.

Cynthia Bourgeault pointed out, in the weekend workshop I attended, that we have our stories. That they are just stories, not who we are. My head knows this. My heart (whole being as Cynthia defines it) needs to get it. She suggested holding the stories lightly and not with attachment. This could leave me with a different feeling about the exposure. Here's to the Grace to do just that--hold the stories lightly and remember they are not who I am.

Then, perhaps, I'll have the courage to tell the difficult stories to those who need to reach down inside themselves and pull up their difficult stories for healing. Who knows? Perhaps that's the place where I must be for the memoir to reach publication. That would truly be a miracle.