On Letting Go

“Choose if your loved ones are to know all that I (God) can be to them, or if they are to miss the best, because they have you instead.”  –Amy Carmichael

Ouch, or maybe more appropriately, whoa.   Upon request a friend sent me her talk, “When Good Kids Make Bad Choices” and I’ve hijacked parts of it, including the quote above, for this blog. Her son is 18 months in recovery after lots of years, fears and tears.

I heard a mom recite a litany of all the things she had done for her son that day; go to court, pay his fine, investigate places for him to live, show him job postings and lecture him on motivation. She was asked what would happen if she didn’t do all those things for him. “If I don’t do them — no one will,” she said breaking down.

I get the temptation if not the action. Ted had his own money in hand and still did not get around to paying a ticket. He tells me now that this kind of thing (mental block, procrastination, insanity, ?) is part and parcel of addiction. That incident sounded an alarm to me that whatever we were dealing with was not normal. I can’t even remember what I did or did not do then, but I know now (or I hope I do), thanks to tools like the following.

LETTING GO

To let go doesn’t mean to stop caring, it means I can’t do it for someone else.

To let go is not to cut myself off, it is the realization that I can’t control another.

To let go is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.

To let go is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.

To let go is not to try to change or blame another.  I can only change myself.

To let go is not to care for, but to care about.

To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.

To let go is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.

To let go is not to be in the middle arranging outcomes, but to allow others to effect their own outcomes.

To let go is not to be protective, it is to permit another to face reality.

To let go is not to deny, but to accept.

To let go is not to nag, scold, or argue, but to search out my own shortcomings and to correct them

To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes and cherish the moment.

To let go is not to criticize and regulate anyone, but to try to become what I dream I can be.

To let go is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.

To let go is to fear less and love more.

Author Unknown