Holding on and Letting Go

In these few words of the poet Mary Oliver, I believe lie some of the most important lessons we will learn in this lifetime, for our whole existence seems to be an ebb and flow of holding tight and letting go.

From the moment we are born (indeed, in the very act of birth), our lives are a dance of holding onto what we love and learning to let it go. The first step we take happens only because someone lets go of our hand and our last journey is one we must take on our own, even if loving souls gather to pass us through the door. As much as we may want to hold on to those we love, letting go of them is an inevitable part of the bargain we strike with our hearts.

The small hand held tightly crossing the street, the tears of separation on the first day of school, the first week at an overnight camp (the confidence and independence that follow,) the wonder of first love, the tragedy of first breakup, the excitement of leaving home, the ache of the empty nest for those left behind, the leap into the fray and the inevitable losses embedded in challenge and change. Above all, the risk in giving your heart to another mortal creature, knowing that someday you will have to let each other go.

All our lives we try to find a healthy balance between holding on and letting go. Holding on can feel like love, safety and comfort; it provides the nurturing we need to grow and thrive, connecting us to one another and helping us believe in the goodness and reliability of the world. Yet holding on too tightly for too long can be suffocating, stunting and sometimes even injurious to our health or to those around us.

Letting go can feel like loss and unpredictability but it can also mean freedom, faith and new possibility, teaching us that while life can be daunting and unpredictable, we have the ability to meet whatever it brings with resilience and strength, to heal and recover. Both are needed; both are essential. Holding on to those we love is what makes sense of our world – and sometimes, our ability to let go is what allows us to find our way to new life.

I believe with all my heart that Love is forever. There is no part of letting go of someone – whether it’s a child that has grown up or a spouse that has passed – that means you love them any less. But the river of life keeps us moving, and our ability to survive depends on being able to discern when to hold on and when to let go. And the conundrum we bereaved face is:

What to hold onto? How much to hold on? How long to hold on? Why, When and How to let go?

In two of my favourite movies, ‘Ghost’ and ‘Truly, Madly Deeply’ (one to solve a murder and the other to grant his blessing for a new love) – the husbands who have died linger in spirit for a time with the one they love and who loves them. Their presence as well as their absence is felt as the bereaved wife talks to them, misses them and struggles to understand the seismic change in her world. In each case, they stay around just long enough to help, and then, they must go. How long should you hold on to the presence of your beloved? Long enough to bring you the peace that overcomes sadness. Long enough to heal your heart.

Each of us are the only ones who can know when the time is right to move forward with our beloved in our heart instead of our arms, when enough healing has happened that we are ready to give thanks for and let go of the life we had in order to embrace the life to come. Only we can decide when to hold on and when to let go.

In your own life, what of your memories, experiences, feelings, lessons, places or things do you want to hold onto? What brings a smile to your face, warms your heart, brings you joy or connects you to a feeling of everlasting Love? What comforts you and helps you as you go forward into your new life? Holding on can mean honouring, remembering and celebrating what you’ve been given; after all, Love is the most miraculous gift any of us will ever receive. It’s worthwhile taking the time to reflect on the many ways that you can help Love stay in your heart and your life.

Yet there can also be great healing in letting go of things that torment you or negativity that weighs you down by taking up real estate in your heart and spirit. Some kinds of loss (sudden, tragic, deliberate, violent) can even find us clinging to pain because it’s our last connection to the one we love. ‘Bound by an inversion,’ we are negatively tied to something that has traumatized us – yet do we really want that trauma to forever be in the forefront of our mind when we think of the one we love?

Ask yourself ‘What is coming between me and healing that I can release? What can I let go of to free myself to hold onto the love I was so blessed to have been given? What might my new joy look like?’ Letting go can be a powerful way of reclaiming the life of your beloved from their death and gaining clarity about what remains. It’s also the only way forward for life more abundant for you.

Finally, the reading below is one that I’ve treasured for years, but it wasn’t until I was widowed that I understood it in a new and deeper way. There is a place between ‘holding on’ and ‘letting go’ and I think that’s where we bereaved can find ourselves. The journalist and author Mignon McLaughlin said “Even cowards can endure hardship; only the brave can endure suspense.” Being widowed can feel like flying through the air having let go of one life without knowing what lies ahead. It takes a tremendous amount of courage.

Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I’m either hanging on to a trapeze bar swinging along or, for a few moments in my life, I’m hurtling across space in between trapeze bars. Most of the time I spend my life hanging on for dear life to my trapeze-bar-of-the-moment.

It carries me along at a certain steady rate of swing and I have the feeling that I’m in control of my life. But once in a while as I’m merrily (or even not-so-merrily) swinging along, I look out ahead of me into the distance and what do I see? I see another trapeze bar swinging towards me. It’s empty and I know, in that place in me that knows, that new trapeze bar has my name on it. It’s my next step, my aliveness coming to get me. And in my heart of hearts, I know that for me to grow, I must release my grip on the present well-known bar to move on to the new one.

Each time it happens to me I hope (no, I pray) that I won’t have to let go of my old bar completely before I grab the new one. But in my knowing place I know that I must totally release my grasp on my old bar and, for some moment in time, hurtle across space before I can grab onto the new bar. Each time I’m filled with terror. It doesn’t matter that in all my previous hurtles across the void of unknowing I have always made it. Each time I am afraid I will miss, but I do it anyway.

Perhaps this is the essence of what the mystics call the faith experience. No guarantees, no net, no insurance policy, but I do it anyway, because somehow to keep hanging on to that old bar is no longer on the list of alternatives. So, for an eternity that can last a microsecond, or a thousand lifetimes, I let go and soar across the dark void of “The past is gone, the future is not yet here.”

I have come to believe that this is the only place that real change occurs. I have a sneaking suspicion that the space between the bars is the real thing and the bars are illusions that we dream up to avoid where the real change, the real growth occurs for us. The transition zones in our lives are incredibly rich places. They should be honored, even savored. Yes, with all the pain and fear and feelings of being out of control that can accompany transitions, they are still the most live, most growth-filled, passionate, expansive moments of our lives. Hurtling through the void, we just may learn how to fly.”

adapted from “Transformation” by Danaan Perry

At the end of this collection is an Appendix that holds different rituals designed to help with many aspects of grieving and recovery. ‘A Meditation for Letting Go’ names just just some of the many ways we can retain or reclaim what helps and release all that holds us back. If you wish – take it, try it, re-write it, change it, live it into your life and maybe even – learn to fly.

May you always be held by the Great Love and when the time comes to let it go – to let it go.