The Art of Letting Go: Our Desire to Control the World Around us

If you have never been to an AA meeting, or therapy session, which is where the above quote is utilized often, that is the serenity prayer which coincides with the topic at hand. I'd like to tackle the art of letting go and our desire to control the world around us by breaking down this prayer. Now fair warning, I do not consider myself as a religious person but I do collect wisdom from all sources which means I have been around many religious people and although I do not follow their choice of church, I do believe there is much to learn from their teachings, so I listen when I can, and have a collection of religious literature that I like to hold on to.

Every prayer starts off with "dear lord", or "God", for me this is up for interpretation, not for anyone to tell you what to believe. For me when I pray it isn't anyone listening but me... but what is "me" ? I'll save this for another post if anyone is interested but I say we are awakening our consciousness to receive our message once we do this if we do this right. Someone once told me that knowledge is all already inside us, we just have to unlock it. So when we examine the phrase "God grant me" it is really our conscious self sending a request to our subconscious self. which is where I believe the God which people worship is located along with a coding in our DNA which allows for this.

In this prayer the first request is "Serenity to accept the things I cannot change." When I first stumbled upon this prayer in a training session while I was in the military, it stuck with me throughout my training and to this day I repeated this prayer many, many times, but what does that mean if you don't understand that practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent. The difference is I never perfected the true meaning of the phrase until I understood each word. So what this means is I'd request knowledge I have yet to unlock, which was serenity. It wasn't until I stumbled upon Mindful Meditation that I really experienced what serenity really meant. My next realization was "Wow, when have I ever accepted the things I cannot change with serenity??" The answer was never. Change, especially unwanted change, was always met with anger. When I was creating change on purpose it was never an issue, but what happened when change just happened? I'll use an old break up as an example of what not to do.

I must admit, I wasn't the best gf at this point. I was highly used and abused before the time of this relationship I am about to discuss and was stuck in a cycle I couldn't see since I was too busy numbing the pain with as much alcohol it took to forget someone or something or everything, but I digress... So there I was, in yet another relationship and completely unaware that I should not even be in one. It felt like everything was going right and everything was fine. I got to meet his parents and a few other family members, we liked all of the same things and we fought but all couples do. I moved in with him since we were both in the military our schedules were pretty much the same, went to work together, and even rented an apartment together with all the things I liked, Marylin Monroe Posters, Japanese art and deco, everything was in many ways perfect. Little did I know the feeling was not mutual( and for valid reasons). We'd fight but I knew I was never going to want to leave him, I've become co-dependent. He was my only source of happiness other than friends or family and I didn't care if he pissed me off. Nothing that couldn't be solved with our clothes off am I right?( apparently angry sex is not healthy, who knew.) Anyways, long story short, he breaks up with me.

OK, I could handle that. One change, one big change... Well ,due to my nosy tendencies, while I was packing my stuff to leave, I tapped my finger on his open laptop. The screen pops up. Facebook is logged into and my first thought was " Oh how stupid could you possibly be?" Of course I'm going to play detective because I was not someone who just accepts change as it comes, oh no, I was lusting for the truth by any means necessary. Just as I suspected, it was his best friend's gf he was nailing. A real piece of shit move, for a best friend. So there I was, balls deep in the truth like I had the blood lust for it and started to search beyond the laptop. I started having flashbacks of how he'd just record me cooking or writing grocery lists or being goofy and just like that I stumbled upon his camera. This guy really wasn't slick... When I opened it up, There she was... all these changes at once and I felt helpless... I gave myself the mark of the victim, because I was nowhere near aware of the fact that all these changes were a going to happen whether I liked it or not or whether I knew every detail or not. I was unaware that I didn't need him to be happy, that happiness is an inside job, so I'm shaking I'm so pissed. Because being a victim pissed me off. So I snapped. I thought I had snapped when I punched his ass in the eye socket the night before, oh no. That wasn't enough. I told myself I am not going lightly. That I was not a game to be played. You wanna play chess? Let's play chess. My move. I'll have what I'm having and it was pure rage. I turned all our good memories into his worst nightmare. Since in the camera was a picture of her on the bed sheet I had just bought( even in my rage I did not want to break anything of his beyond repair, balance?) I ripped that thing like it was paper. Do you know how thick that thing was? To this day I cannot repeat it, I was raged out of my mind. It wasn't enough so I took the framed butterfly from when we went to the fair, took it to the sink and smashed it with a hammer. I took His pickled garlic we got on a trip to Oregon and poured it all on our bed so he can smell the filth I felt in my heart. His favorite sweater? bleached and stuffed in the toilet and flushed. our herb garden? smashed. His guitar? I could not...instead I paused... I looked around at all the destruction and was so calm. But for one last hoorah I stuffed his uniforms in the dryer along with his frozen burritos, turned it on to the highest setting and left the key inside the place and left, just like he had asked.

He called the police but little did he know, I knew he would and mentally prepared by calling my best friend at the time, my older brother who told me "Deny it to the fullest, he asked you to leave the key inside, you couldn't lock the door. someone broke in." Brilliant. So I take the call from the police, deny it to the fullest and tell them exactly what I rehearsed, and said I hope they find the perp. Hung up. Clayton ( My ex) calls me, obviously this was meant to be a trap and the police were listening in so I kindly wish him well and disconnect. The very next day I tell him I did it because I was pregnant with his child and then proceeded to fake a pregnancy in order for him to drop any and all charges. I then proceed to fake a miscarriage. I'm not proud of this... but I wasn't trying to get in trouble with the law. Yeah, I wasn't in a good place, mentally. I kept fighting fate.

The trash was taking itself out and I was focused so much on what I couldn't change but I will say this, I had courage to change the things I could, that's for sure. Which brings me to the next break down in this prayer: The courage to change the things you can. This doesn't mean trashing your ex's apartment, I do not encourage that behavior. What I did might have been courageous, but misguided. That was courage guided by hate when what I needed was courage guided by what he couldn't give me which was love. Where there should have been mercy, I saw only my wounds and all these rapid changes. My life as i knew it was over... I decided this was a bad thing before I even gave the moment a chance to teach me the lesson that I have been avoiding, which is the art of letting go. And it is an art. Every time you let go it is a unique experience happening for a reason so don't fight it. And don't fight yourself for it either. You know what you know now because of it. Stop focusing on the pain and focus on the lesson. The darkness only leaves once you turn on a light. Out of questions, ideas are born. You may be one decision away from finding that light. There, you will find the wisdom to know the difference between things we can change and things we can't. you can't make anyone love you, you can't make someone stay, and you can't keep avoiding the dark. Dive into the unknown and remember that if you want to fly, you have to let go of the what's weighing you down.

Stay Woke