Letting go

For the better part of this academic year (at least since September or so), I’ve been struggling with the twin impulses calling me to to let go of something … and how completely terrified I am of doing so. I’ve been talking about this to friends, to family members, to dogs, to myself in the car, to coaches, and just about anyone or anything that crosses my path. Although I’ve never felt that someone else will be able to tell me what the right action is, or give me permission sufficient to let go of the fear, I’ve known that letting go of this thing is inevitable … when I’m ready.

This thing is a safety net. It’s a job I’ve held for more than a decade (I’m approaching my 11-year anniversary, in fact). It was there waiting for me when I got back from my wedding in July 2006, and it’s carried me through a difficult marriage, an isolating divorce, years of genuinely not knowing if I’d be able to scrape together enough money to feed myself this month (for several months in there, Totino’s $1 frozen pizzas were my nightly dinners), and a new era cobbling together a sustainable income through a massive variety of part-time teaching jobs. Had it not been for this little job, I would not have made it as easily as I did. I wouldn’t have had a network of smart, wickedly funny, kind, generous people there to keep me intellectual company when I left my marriage. I owe so much to this job, and letting go of it now, when I neither need it nor find quite the same joy in it that I once did, feels like betraying a longtime friend.

Yet, like so many things that hold us for a decade or more, this safety net is tattered at the edges. It’s losing its structural integrity. And by that, I mean simply that I don’t need to be held in this way anymore. I’m so much stronger, clearer, and purpose-driven today than I was eleven years ago. I promised myself I’d hold onto this net until I knew about my long-term, full-time career aspects in my current role. Now armed with the knowledge that I’ve got a more permanent home, I’m not searching out ways to find a tenuous hold on financial security.

Honestly, the only reason I haven’t let it go yet is the deep — and I do mean DEEP — and abiding affection I have for my colleagues. We’re spread out all over the country — the world, even — and I’ve come to know, respect, and love them through many, many hours of collaboration and support. They are truly bright lights in my world, and the thought of leaving our often magical collaborations fills me with the sad.

Yet, staying connected — even when I work almost never — exacts a price. The mental and emotional energy invested into staying current, being ready to work, and occasionally picking up a project to stay plugged in, deviates energy from the things that are truly calling my heart these days. I only have so much energetic bandwidth to engage with other people and activities. The time required to stay even minimally plugged into this world depletes what’s available for things like designing fun yoga classes or writing or practicing yoga myself or going on retreats or planning retreats or …. well, SO Many Things that I want to do right now.

This past weekend, I participated in a smudging ceremony. This ritual involves a clearing out of things that no longer serve. It involves taking dried sage, set alight then reduced to smoking embers, which are then waved around you to help draw out the things that need to go. They rise to the heavens with the smoke. As our retreat leaders Shari and Mandy moved the group of women assembled through this ritual, I called to mind this job, this safety net, this life force that has meant so very much to me. And, as the smoke of the sage rose around me, I let it go. I let it rise.

I don’t mean to wax melodramatic about what, essentially, is a business enterprise. I do work; they pay me. Yet, as Rachel Cole pointed out to me, this job has embodied safety for me. Until she said that, I wasn’t thinking about safety as the reason I was holding on … but she was So Right.

It’s scary to let go of the known and jump into the wide world of the unknown. And yet, I feel filled with hope, inspiration, and optimism. I feel lighter, knowing that my heart now has a little more space to explore and experiment and grow.

What in your life needs to be set free? What can you free within yourself by doing so?