Tara Brach - Letting Go: The Freedom of Awake Awareness

Episode Date: September 2, 2016

Letting Go: The Freedom of Awake Awareness (2016-08-31) - We know we need to let go of harmful habits like obsessive worry, blame and over consuming to experience true well-being, yet much of the time we are stuck and judge ourselves for being out of control. This talk explores what's so difficult about letting go and how we can't will it but we can be willing. We then explore the shift to awake awareness that enables a natural dissolution of clinging and resistance, and the deep peace and freedom of letting be.   Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara  

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really matters. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. So I'll begin this class sharing. One of the very first stories I ever heard when I started meditation classes myself. It has a real classic setup of a guy's going for hike and all of a sudden he's being chased by a tiger so he kind of jumps over the edge and have this fairly high ridge and grabs onto a root and he's dangling from this root and below him are jagged rocks and above him is this pacing, a totally hungry tiger and so you know he's, all he can think of is to call out for help so he yells out, help, help and and here's a voice, a booming

voice and he goes, God, is that you? Yes, it's me, it's God. Well, what should I do? What should I do? and God says, just let go. And the guy goes, is anybody else there? And I always loved it because this letting go teaching, you know, how many of us have heard this teaching that in spiritual life are really learning to let go, let go, let go.

And when we're really stuck, when we're caught in craving, when we're really afraid, it's the last thing we can do. It's like everything in us is hooked. So most everyone I know has some habit, whether it's a mental habit of obsessing and worrying or, you know, a behavioral habit of overconsuming or whatever that is or emotional habit of, you know, getting real gripped by things or angry. We all have habits that in some way we know that if we could in some way, get over them, let them go, we'd actually be living more fully.

We'd have more space for presence and we'd be more loving. And we spent a lot of time noticing how we're not able to control those habits and we're often adding on that second hour of judging ourselves, like feeling bad about ourselves for not being able to control what we think we should be able to control. So this is the predicament. We're going to explore this a bit but I'd like to first ask you to reflect so you can kind of ground it in your life just to close your eyes for a moment.

As I was speaking of habits you might have glanced over your own life a little but what are some habits that you have that you know if you were able to get over them things would be a lot more free and happy? What do you wish you could let go of? Is it being judgmental? Is it anxious worrying? Is it the habit of having very limiting self-beliefs of not being worthy or enough? What would you like to be letting go of?

And as you consider this, just sense, what is it that really makes the letting go hard with this? What happens when you face this one? What happens when you encounter the real strength of the wants and the fears underneath? this habit. What's your attitude or way of relating to this? Are you judging yourself or not being able to let go? Or do you have a positive framing that, oh, this is an area for growing, waking up? What's your way of relating to a habit that has some grip? We're going to come back. I'm going to ask you to reflect more on this habit but we're going to begin by looking at really what it is that makes letting go so difficult, how even the language of letting go is actually

a little misleading. Now we're going to explore how our ongoing practice of mindfulness and compassion actually facilitates letting go. And we're going to look how to deepen that practice when there's a real gripping habit. That's the plan. This would probably be a two-year part reflection. When I get back in town, we'll probably do part two, which is really exploring impermanence, which is the main domain when we start talking about letting go. We'll see how far we get. So what makes it so difficult? You know, when we're hooked, how come we're so hooked? And one of the simple ways to look at it is that, you know, when awareness takes form, when existence arises and becomes form at a formless, the very nature of taking form is a cohesion that has a grip.

It has to hold itself together and has to hold on to life. Life has to hold on to living. So rather than framing it as holding on as bad, it is a basic characteristic of being alive that we hold on some. And that holding on and that protecting, which is completely what an organism needs to do to make it become suffering when it locks in and it becomes extended and it becomes a reaction that's more pervasive when it's no longer situation appropriate and that happens when we have unmet needs when for whatever reason to do with our where we're living our country our culture our family they're strong unmet needs to the degree

that they're very, very strong, in other words, our needs for safety, our needs for connection and bonding and attachment, love, our needs for understanding, for feeling worth, for feeling efficacy. When they're really not met, to the degree they're not met, to that degree we are going to grasp and we're going to defend. That's when it gets intense. So, to be able to know that is the beginning of to be able to work with that. That it's not our fault. I'm going to keep looping back to the it's not our fault theme because if we are blaming ourselves for not being able to let go, we lock it in even more. About a year and a half ago, I read a book by Tana, He See Coates, and it's called Between the World and Me. And it describes

the way he grew up in Baltimore, right near here, and he describes the way most people of color live with a fear for their bodily selves. And I'm curious how many people here have read the book. Oh, good. I love it. That makes me happy. It's a very powerful book and he really describes how whether it's the person themselves immediately being threatened or it's your son or your father. It's dangerous to be a person of color in a very bodily way you're at risk. And so the meditation instructions, just let go, just relax. They don't work. They're like a denial of survival instincts that are there for a reason, that are in action for a good reason.

One friend of mine has told me many times we compare notes because we both raise sons around the same time. And she said, for her raising a son, she had to teach him to be afraid of the police. so he didn't in some way act a little bit off and then get himself killed. Fear of her bodily self. So this isn't like a grasping inappropriately and it gets locked in the nervous system in a way that can end up causing a lot of suffering. So in this book between the world and me, he describes an experience he had in Paris that I think is really, really illustrates

when we move from this limbic reaction of grasping and resisting being part of survival to where it ends up blocking our life. And he describes how... And he wrote this book, by the way, to his son. And it's really beautiful because it shines a light on what's going on in a way that he hopes his son will have more freedom from this limbic hijack than he had. Okay? So he goes for the first time out of the country to Paris.

and he describes a few weeks into the trip that he meets a new friend who wants to learn English and he wants to learn French so they get together and describes at one point meeting up with the man and going to a cafe and this guy orders wine and heaping platters of meat and breads and cheese and then the guy pays for everything

and he's thinking okay this is all an elaborate ritual to get an angle on me something's going to go wrong here then the friend wants to show show him some architecture of a building nearby, so he guides him over there. Well, this guy, Tanahis coach is thinking, well, he's just waiting for the guy to slip into an alley where some dudes are going to be waiting to attack.

Now, he's living on this high alert and he can't let it go. He says, but my new friend simply showed me the building, shook my hand, gave a fan, bon soray and walked off into the wide open night. night and watching him walk away, I felt that I had missed part of the experience because my eyes, because my eyes were made in Baltimore, because my eyes were blindfolded by fear. And then he goes on to say to a son, what I wanted was to put as much distance between you and that blinding fear as possible. I share this story because I'd say for most of us as we reflect, well, what do I want to be able to

let go of. Many of us want to be able to let go of the grip of fear. How many of you might have touched on to that in your own reflection? You'd really like to be less caught in fear. Can I see by hands? I mean, I know for me it's like I wish I could have more fear. Yeah. For those of you that are watching or listening on the podcast, that was probably about 80% of us. So, we want to, and yet it's not a choice. We can't will it. We can't will it to let go. But what we can do as Tanahisi Coates does so powerfully

is shine the light of awareness on how it is. And that's the beginning of freedom. It's the beginning. It's the step. Now, there's a kind of image I find very, very helpful to imagine awareness, this big open field of awareness and there's a line in it. And in any given moment,

you're either living below the line where things are going on but you're not conscious of them. There's not a mindful awareness of what's going on. Or you're living above the line where there might be fear, anger, hurt, but there's an awareness of. And if you're living above the line,

you can keep waking up that awareness and so that what you're aware of loses its power. That's what letting go is. Letting go, what's going on is there's some tightness or tension or clench in our body, our mind, our being against life. We're threatened or we're clenching because we want. And when then we wake up above the line and we recognize that,

we're no longer so identified with the clench. We can begin to loosen it. I first heard this kind of image of space and the line from Jim Denthmer and his colleagues. He wrote a book on leadership and his way of describing it is you're either leading from above the line or below the line. But it really extends to living from above the line, below the line, which I know is part of what he's teaching. Beautiful teaching and book. So if we have unmet needs that are driving us to eat, or driving us to get angry at each other, or driving us to judge, or driving us in some way that keeps us small, and we're not enough

above the line to recognize those unmet needs, they'll never be a letting go of them. So what happens is a lot of the time we're living below the lines. where I sometimes describe as limbic hijack where our thoughts are worry thoughts and we're speeding around and we're kind of living inside our judgment of this person kind of let us down there I'm feeling here or I've got to have something that we want to eat or drink. We're living in that. We're living below the line. And if we can notice that, just the noticing of it begins to shift.

But below the line represents. our earliest stages of evolution. It's just if you think of it in terms of stages of evolution, we emerge as a creature that was not self-aware. We were kind of in the water moving around and then we kind of climbed onto land. And at some point, we started coming above the line. We started developing a frontal cortex.

But before that, we weren't self-aware. So when we get caught in our limbic systems, We're just kind of living from the earlier, more primitive parts of our brain. And the problem with telling somebody when they're caught to let go is when we're living from our olympic hijack, we can't. Okay, that's one problem. Letting go would actually be a bypass. There are many ways that we can do a kind of fake let go.

You can say, well, I want you to let go of that anger right now and then shame yourself so that you land up in shame but not anger. Or you can cut off a habitual behavior and say, okay, I'm not going to touch a drink but still live in a lot of craving and just transfer the habit to smoking. Right? And we all know this. So there's a lot of ways you seemingly are let go of one thing. But you're just shifting the addiction because we haven't gotten a number. enough above the line to attend to the unmet needs. The worst part of telling somebody to let go when they're not ready to let go is the shaming.

It leaves us and I think so many of us experience this feeling bad because we're out of control. So let's explore this a little more because the good news is there is a natural evolving of consciousness that's going on. every one of us has access to the awareness above the line. And we can train ourselves to have more access. So rather than fixating on I should let go of this behavior, we can let the behaviors be a kind of wake up to,

oh, how can I be more awake right now? Now, that doesn't cause shame. Like, what would it mean to notice more right now? How can I relate rather than react? So let's explore how it happens that we can get above the line. But the first piece is it's a shift in attitude. If you're working with any habit you are thinking of, if you can shift the attitude from I should change this and I'm bad if I can't to this is an area where awareness wants

to wake up more. This is a portal. This is the place where there's possibility of living more above the line. You know, please teach me. Please let that happen. If it comes from prayerfulness, from a sincere intention, then that automatically begins to do that awakening above the line. If it's from should, should just plays into the limbic system. I'm going to pause. Does that make sense to you, that shift in attitude? Okay, on the same page here. So the shift really begins with a kind of wisdom recognition that the small self can't will itself to let go.

And that for those of you that are 12-steppers, you know that one. The egoic self is organized around grasping and resisting. That's just what it does. So the freedom comes when we wake up beyond the egoic self. So the first wisdom is this self can't will letting go. And the second piece of wisdom is a deep intuition that every one of us has, that there is a more awake awareness available, whether you call it a higher power,

or you call it your high self, or you call it Bodhita the awakened heart mind. There's an awareness that's always an already, here and we can learn to access it. Ajan Shah is no longer alive, one of the great forest monastics and teachers. He had a really big influence on this generation of Vapasna teachers, insight meditation teachers, and here's what he says. He says, we see ourselves clinging and we know it, but we still can't let go.

This is 50% or 70% of the practice already. We're seeing it. There still isn't released, but we know that if we could let go, that would be the way to peace. So they're seeing it, seeing the clinging, seeing the places we're contracted, knowing we can't do it quite now, but knowing that as we wake up and if we can just call on more awareness, that would be the way to peace. So we train. So we're going to talk about the training when we're not in the grip that helps to access that awareness.

and then how we can begin to do it when we are caught in the grip. It's easiest to see how the letting go happens when we're not supercharged. It starts with the training often with our thoughts. That kind of basic core level of our training in insight meditation and in many forms of meditation is notice when the thoughts are happening. If you notice the thoughts you're not inside them. You're already above the line. By the way, there's degrees of being above the line.

You can be above the line and notice something and you can be above the line and holding what's arising with vast, compassionate awareness. It's totally awake. So there's degrees, but just get above the line. Okay, thinking, thinking, I see these thoughts. Because in the moment that you see the thought, you're not inside it. And I like to think of it like, you know, if you're flying in an airplane and you're inside a cloud and the whole world is cloud.

And then when you fly through it and you're no longer inside it, you can see the other clouds but you're aware of sky, you the sky like mind. So just remember, awareness is here, thoughts are clouds, you don't have to be inside them. And one of the great realizations when anybody comes to a retreat for a few days and they've practiced over and over again waking up from thoughts, the great realization, the great realization is, I don't have to believe my thoughts. It's amazing. It's liberating.

Our thoughts paint our world. They keep us in prison. They keep us believing. We're small. We're not good enough. And we need to do a whole lot more to be okay. What if you're playing, your consciousness could move through it and now back to open sky? You could go above the line.

Ajin Samato talks about this. He says, the practice of letting go is very effective for minds obsessed by compulsive thinking. You simplify your meditation practice down to just two words, letting go. Rather than try to develop this practice and they develop that and achieve this and go into that and understand and read the sutas and study the Abidama and then learn Pali and Sanskrit and the Majramakaya and Parajna Paramita, get ordinations in Hinayana, Mahayana and Vadryana, write books and become a world-renowned and

authority on Buddhism instead of becoming the world's expert on Buddhism and being invited to great international Buddhist conferences, just let go, let go, let go. He says, I did nothing but this for about two years. Every time I tried to understand or figure things out, I'd say let go, let go until the desire would fade out. So I'm making it very simple for you to save you from getting caught in incredible amounts of suffering. There's nothing more sorrowful than having to attack.

attend international Buddhist conferences. Letting go. So the letting go, if you start noticing thoughts and your intention is to be above the line, the letting go actually happens quite naturally unless, of course, the thoughts are charged thoughts. That's a different story. If they're really anxious thoughts

or really addictive grasping thoughts, then we have to go deeper. We have to wake up that above the, the line even more. But for now, the training is just go above the line enough to notice thinking. It's the same thing with sensations. When we're not aware of sensations, when we're below the line there's all this clenching going on in our body. You might sweep through your body right now and just notice what's there. When we're not paying attention, we find that all of our nervous system recontracts in certain ways. It's the reason that shoulder

go up and forward. It's the reason we don't digest food so well. There's kind of knots in the belly. If you check your chest there's usually a little bit of a clench. But we don't notice this clench. It's like a fist that's clenching and we're not noticing it. And then if we go above the line and just notice sensations, as soon as you notice something and you're not, and it's in awareness, it starts to loosen naturally. example today, I had to come into town early at a meeting and I didn't realize that the Capitol Beltway was already going to be stopped at 325 p.m. Did you already know that? I didn't know that. So there I was and I hadn't calculated for it, so I was going to be late and the

normal stuff happened. It was an important meeting to me. I didn't want to be late and I started leaning forward and clenching and part of me said you know this isn't going to help but I was just all caught, you know. And I said, wait a minute, you're giving a talk on letting go. Let's, it always happens. I always get exercises in what I'm talking about. So, I pause and I said, okay, let's just scan through the body and I just felt where the body was tense. And I, and it wasn't like I tried to get rid of the tension. It was like by bringing awareness to the tension, there's a natural unfolding. It's like if you make a fist right now, go ahead, just clench your fist and sense really tight. And imagine that's going on outside your awareness.

Well, as soon as you bring your awareness to it, you can stop the doing. You can unclench. It's not like you're doing a let go. It's like you're allowing life to be as it is. Letting go really is letting be, letting naturalness be, stop the doing of the clenching, seize clenching. Same thing with emotions, strong emotions there. If you can name it and just allow it to be there, you're not as identified. The clench starts seizing. The shaman say if you can name a fear, it loses its power over you.

that's letting go. I'll just pause here. I'd like to give you a chance just to practice for a moment. This basic training. This is really the letting go that comes when we go above the line and just let be with awareness. Feel your body sitting here. Close your eyes.

Aware of the body breathing. You might imagine your awareness is coming from a corner of the right room kind of beaming down at you and just kind of be aware of this body, this form, this breathing. And just let that awareness spread all around you so you can sense awareness is all around you, witnessing and being aware of this body and mind right here. You can even let the awareness come from the inside out so you're really aware of sensation. Aware of sensation.

And wherever sensation is strong in the body right now, wherever you feel it most strongly, let awareness include that, sense how awareness is experiencing wherever there's tightness or tension. Just let it float in awareness, naturally undo itself in awareness. Notice how awareness doesn't oppose anything,

anything. Awareness just allows life to unfold naturally. Let awareness include whatever mood is in the heart. There's any tension or tightness, fear, numbness, just since you can let it float in awareness. Letting go doesn't mean that it goes away. We just let go of the identification with it. There's more freedom, more space. Awareness be aware of whatever thoughts are in the mind, let them come and go. Sensing awareness is extending outward, very open, and also extending inward. So there's plenty of space for this whole body, mind being to float, unfold. Letting be, letting be, and there's a natural letting go of any identification that binds. Hajan Cha puts it this way.

He says, if you let go a little, you'll find a little peace. If you let go a lot, you'll find a lot of peace. If you let go absolutely, you'll find absolute peace and tranquility. To be above the line and rest and open awareness, absolutely letting be what is. No resistance. No opposing. is to rest in peace. Opening your eyes if you'd like or you can sit with your eyes closed if you'd enjoy that.

So now we go to the next part of our reflection which is what do we do when we would like to be above the line and paying attention but it's really really gripping what's there. It's really really difficult to be with. It's not just come in and going like clouds in the sky, it's hard. And when this is the case, as we talked about earlier, that's a sign that there's something more to be included in awareness that we're in the habit of running away from. It's like that sage, you said, what are you unwilling to feel? So when we get hooked, when we're habitually hooked, there is some vulnerability in the

body, some unmet need that we have not yet included in awareness. So this is what the invitation is. If you're working on letting go of something, it's really about inhabiting the awareness that can begin to include the vulnerability of the unmet need. So again, attitude is critical. Oh, okay, so what's really happening here? And I like to use the acronym Raine as a deepening of attention, opening and inhabiting that above the line field even more fully and for those that aren't familiar.

Rain is just a way to systematically be mindful especially when you're confused or at odds and you forget how to be mindful. And the R of rain is recognize, oh okay, what's going on here? You know, fear, anger. The A of rain is allow it. Just let it be there. Now when we're caught in our limbic reactivity it's like anger's here. but there's no way. We're either angry and then we get righteous about it or we get ashamed

of it. We don't just allow. Allowing is critical. And then the eye of rain is investigate. And that's to bring even more brightness to that above-the-line field of awareness. Find out what's there. Discover the unmet need, the vulnerability included. The end of rain is nurture. that the natural expression of awake awareness is tenderness. That is the taste or the flavor of a free, awake mind is a tender heart, nurture. And then after our AIN, there's a resting in that space that's no longer gripped in non-clinging. Give you an example from my own life because it

was such a powerful learning for me about letting go. When I was in my late teens, in my early 20s, I had a definite eating addiction and I was profoundly ashamed of it and ashamed of my body, but in the deepest way, ashamed that I couldn't control it. It's like I could not will myself not to binge. No matter how much I tried, like I tried all sorts of strategies, I could not will myself. So what we have here is that there's the addiction and then the second arrow of course of feeling huge self-aversion which locked in the cycle because the more I felt self-aversion

the more I felt driven to kind of numb and soothe myself with food. You know I'm looking back probably went on for about three years where I was really suffering from it and meditation. I went into, I moved into an ashram began to meditate. more and the beginning of a shift. And by the way, the shift in my eating behavior never happened because I was able to control the eating. It happened because I became more awake above the line. And that happened because my attitude shifted.

I stopped being so ashamed. And the way it happened was, and if you use rain as the model, I would recognize, okay, there's craving or there's aversion. or here's the behavior itself, I'd recognize what was going on, and rather than trying to fix it, change it, judge it, numb it, deny it, I'd just create a pause. And then I'd start investigating, well, what's really going on inside me? And for the largest time I would find it was self-aversion. I mean, that was the deepest, most compelling, most toxic feeling was self-aversion. So that was the investigating, what does that place need? That's such a

a powerful question. What does this place need? This place is self-aversion? Well, it needs to feel loved. It needs to feel forgiven. It needs to feel it's okay. And just sensing that, just being aware and that's more awareness, being aware, there was a natural place in me in my more awake heart that said, oh, I'm so sorry. Oh, okay, I love you. Now that, that process, if I, in any time that I went through that process and ended up offering self-compassion, that's the end of rain, then in the aftermath of rain, and I say this very often, the moments after the nourishing are the key moments. Notice what happens. Because if you just move into your life again, you won't have caught the flavor of freedom, which is after rain, just

like after a real rain, that's when everything blossoms. After you practice rain and those moments, there's a freedom where who you are is that kind, open awareness and you may still have some streams of wanting and fearing, but that doesn't define you. And that's freedom, this sense of, oh, this loving awareness is what I am. In those moments of non-clinging, we really understand the peace and freedom of letting go. So after rain, just pause. And sometimes you'll do rain, it'll be incomplete, and you won't have gotten down to the deepest vulnerability and you won't have aroused the deepest compassion. But still, you're more above the line. Notice that. The more you get familiar with who you are above the line, the more you'll

be drawn to inhabit that space. This is the training of heart. heart and mind that really frees us. So I just want to say for myself many, many, many rounds. And now it's not as like, okay, R, okay, A, you know, it doesn't go like that for me now. It's more the moment I detect contraction, whether it's in my body or contracted thought pattern or contracted heart, there's immediately, oh, deepen attention, what's happening? Oh, okay. And sometimes it's with my hands and sometimes it's just a spontaneous tenderness like just showering me from a bigger sense of being.

We're going to practice this together in a few moments but just to give you one more example of how it works. Some of you might be aware that there's more and more introduction to mindfulness and emotional resilience in the armed forces. In fact, you know, positive psychology and emotional resilience with a section on mindfulness is actually I'm seeing it in a lot of places. And in one surgeon, I think in the military, was doing an anger management program and he got the training in mindfulness to work with anger, which is one of those habits that so many of us wish we wouldn't lash out and hate ourselves for lashing out.

So he took this training and the basic practices just as we're describing to get above the line so that you're able to respond, not react. You know, below the line is react, above the line is respond. It means you have to notice what's going on and just regard it with kindness. Okay? Investigate what's going on and regard it with kindness. So for him, the incident that has always stood out my mind and I share this story whenever I have a chance and fits in because I found it

so helpful to me is that he went to a supermarket to buy groceries. He had a lot to do that evening. He had a lot of stuff to get. He wasn't in the express lane but she was in his line. She should have been in the express line. She only had one thing but she had a child and she was in front of him in line and she takes the child, hands her to the clerk and the clerk and her ooing and eyeing over this little girl. And this guy's behind with, and he's saying, wait a minute, she shouldn't be in this

line and now they're doing this whole relational thing over this kid. I'm a busy guy, I've got a lot to do if I don't meet this deadline, there's hell to pay. You know, he is building up a real head of steam. So he goes, oh, okay, mindfulness, you know. And, you know, so he just starts noticing what's happening. He goes above the line just by saying, oh, be mindful. you know, above the line. So he's just starting to notice what's going on and he realizes the clutch in him and that underneath the anger, it's fear

that he won't get things done and then his world will fall apart. How many of you have ever had that experience? You know, we know that. So he goes, okay, fear, fear. You know, and he's bringing gentle attention to it. This is rain, nourishing, and just feeling a little more spaciousness.

he opens his eyes and notices that this little girl is really cute. So when it's his turn, finally the woman leaves, he says, oh, that little girl is really adorable. And the clerk just lights up and she goes, oh, well, actually that's my little girl. My mom brings her over twice a day so we can visit because my husband was killed in Afghanistan and this is really our only time to have a little chance to connect. The power of going above the line is actually opens up our lives to be intimate with our own being and to be in real connection with each other. When we're lost in our reactions, we can't tell what's going on with other people.

And I share this story not because everybody that we meet has just experienced some major tragedy but more for all of us in these bodies you know life is hard every one of us and this is the final part that we will do in part two but every one of us is living in a body that gets sick and if we're lucky it gets older but sometimes it doesn't and dies and we lose those we love and our minds can go and in our nervous system there is is a recognition that around the corner something could be really hard and we tense against it. So everybody's living in vulnerability and if we could slow it down and say oh when we get

into a reaction you know let's go above the line just call on the more awake parts of our being call on our awake heart our wake mind. If we could do that I sometimes have been calling it our future self, our being when it is really above the line and no longer hooked. Just call on that to help us bring presence to the contraction. That's all we need to do is notice and bring a clear and kind attention to the contraction and by nature there's a releasing. Let's try this out together and as you're beginning to settle, I'm going to

first read you a poem, say a few words and then I'm going to invite you to explore something that has been challenging to you. This is a poem by Reverend Sapphire Rose called She Let Go. She let go without a thought or a word, she let go. She let go of the fear, she let go of the judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the right reasons, wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry. She just let go. She didn't ask anyone for advice. She didn't read a book on how to let go. She didn't search the scriptures. She just let go. She let go of all the memories that held her back. She let go of all the anxiety that kept her from moving forward. She let go of the planning

and all the calculations about how to do it right. She didn't promise to let go. She didn't journal about it. She didn't write the projected date in her daytimeer. She made no public announcement, put no ad in the paper. She just let go. No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or congratulations.

No one thanked her or praised her. No one noticed a thing. Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go there was no effort there was no struggle it wasn't good and it wasn't bad it was just what it was

and it is just that in the space of letting go she let it all be she let it all be she let it all be a small smile came over her face a light breeze blew through her

and the sun and the moon shone forevermore. Letting go arises simply from awareness, from being more aware. You might bring to mind someplace in you that's been some behavior, thought pattern, some emotion, some constellation that's a habit that you know keeps you small, not to do anything about it, but more just to sense, okay, this is here. to recognize it. It doesn't take effort to recognize. It's a natural capacity of the mind. As if you're again, as I described earlier, maybe up in the corner of the room, your awareness is beaming down and you're just taking it all in. Okay, this is the habit.

Allowing it to be there. Just allowing it. Awareness is naturally allowing. And that beam of awareness that's coming from the corner of them can spread around you and spread inside you as you've already recognized and allowed, you begin to investigate and find out more. What's underneath this habit? What's the fear, the want, the unmet need? You might even ask the most vulnerable place inside you, that which is driving the habit, well, what do you need? that place want understanding, company, love, acceptance.

As you're investigating can help to put your hand on your heart, just deepening the attention. It's as if more and more of you is above the line, just holding and recognizing what's going on with a very tender attention. sensing what this part most needs, what's the unmet need. You might imagine sense that you could call on the most awake part of your awareness, your future self, that beingness that's fully above the line, fully loving, to help really bring just exactly what's needed to this part of you. Love, pour in, wash through, understanding, acceptance,

compassion. So there's an awareness that recognizes and allows, sees what's happening, includes the profound tenderness and at your own pace and you can continue this in your own timing after the activity of rain, there's that resting in that tender awareness. And just notice who are you when there's no clinging. no resisting. Just this open-hearted awareness. Just rest in that. There was no effort, there was no struggle, it wasn't good, it wasn't bad, it was what it was and it is just that. In the space of letting go, she let it all be. Let it all be. Let it all be. Let it all be. A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her.

and the sun and the moon shone forevermore. Namaste and blessings. For more talks and meditations, and to learn about my schedule or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com.