Letting Go of Others

©2011 Joan M. Newcomb

There's two parts to today's essay - 1) letting go of loved ones, family members, children, and friends, and 2) not matching the majority, collective, or group.
 
First off, it's important to realize that we are all Spirit (Infinite, Expanded).  That means we're bigger than our stories, our personalities, our bodies, and our individual lifetime.  An infant is as capable at creating it's reality as an adult.  Before we are born, we create our basic story plot, including our parents, our birth circumstances, and our childhood. 
 
I no longer believe that life is a school in that there aren't specific lessons for us to learn.  We're Infinite; we ARE the 'Cosmic Internet'.  Life is a road trip to be enjoyed.  *And* there's always fun experiences with inhabiting into a body and navigating through the density & effort of a physical plane.
 
We are ALL infinite Beings.  Including your children.  *They* created their basic story plot, including *you* are their parent(s), their birth circumstances and their childhood.  Your body may have manufactured (or contributed to manufacturing) their body, you may have given them rudimentary driving lessons, but ultimately, the keys are theirs and their choices of routes and stops along the way is entirely their own.
 
My firstborn was a home birth that ended up being helicoptered to intensive care for the first week of his life.  It should have given me a clue that he was going to go a 'scenic route' through life that I would not have planned for him.  In stepping back, letting go of his itinerary (which I had no power in creating, as much as I'd like to blame or take credit for), he's been able to achieve things I could never have imagined.  And experienced heartache I would have given anything to avoid.
 
My youngest is in Morocco with his college group as I write this.  It did not help that I followed #Morocco on Twitter and got every on-the-street video of protesters being beaten up in Casablanca and a couple other cities.  For one thing, he was in Tangiers on the other side of the country.  And I suspect he had a wonderful time completely oblivious to any political rumblings going on.  He is orchestrating *his* scenic route through life in a more creative way that I could have written for him.
 
We have to let go of others to their own creations.  They are not powerless, they are not victims, and other ones are not evil or bad.  We are all Infinite Beings making up our own storylines for the challenge and the fun of it.  When you can shift to that perspective you can be amused (Spirit is always amused, it doesn't take anything in this playground seriously), and you can appreciate how capable everyone is.
 
This includes letting them go to experience joy and happiness, as well as pain and despair. 
 
This includes letting them go to live, or to die.  As Spirit, there is no death.  It's just getting out of the pool when swim time is over.  The only part that is gone is the body, and that's a very small portion of Who anyone is.  You can still talk to people without their body, they're just harder to hear (until you develop your ability to communicate with them).  As Spirit there are no ethics about how long to inhabit a body, either.  Sometimes a few months in utero is all that's needed.  It's not how long a life is lived that matters, it's how full (to paraphrase Seneca).
 
The second part of this is not matching the group or collective.  You can be in an area that experiences a massive disaster, and have a different experience within it.  On 9/11 there were countless numbers of people who were supposed to be in the Twin Towers or on those ill-fated airplanes that missed their flight or had their meeting canceled, or woke up with the flu.  They did not join the group(s) in that creation.  Joan Borysenko's neighborhood in Colorado had a wildfire burn through, and her house was left standing. 

In terms of spiritual or personal growth, we often have to let go of the group because, instead of allowing for expansion, they're encouraging limitation.  Family members get stuck in perpetuating patterns of dysfunction or abuse, but we don't have to play with them!  It's okay not to be related to your relatives.  Lola Jones says 'spiritual practices are meant to be outgrown', sometimes spiritual groups, churches and belief systems need to be left behind as well.
 
This is also helpful in terms of the economy; you can experience prosperity in a 'down market'.  You can get a job amidst the sea of unemployed, because your energy is brighter and stands out.
 
On the other hand, going through tough times or emergencies can bring out the best in people.  It's an opportunity to grow deeper, emotionally.  It's a chance to open hearts and hands to each other.  In which case, your experience is less painful, you have less suffering, because you are in the bigger awareness of it.
 
Just some things to keep in mind during these exciting times!