Category: letting go

letting go, National Poetry Month, poetry

Poem #3 Let Go

There comes a moment
of clenching fists
gritting teeth
tense muscles
eyes water
tears rundown
dry lips become
saturated with
the realizations that
all control is lost
because the mind races
to blame ourselves
when we dont even
know how we got here 
holding on to that something:
the past
a picture
a pillow
a letter
a chain
so tight that
fingers bleed
from the shards
of broken promises
and shattered dreams
the death grip
so tight we forget to breathe

take a deep breath
and release
hold on no more to the shame
unclench your teeth
give up the power
that you allow the other
relax the muscles and watch
the puppet strings *snap*
open your hands
and look at wonder of
a stress free life
let go
you are free from the lies
free from the cries
the excuses
the abuses

let go and become
the beautiful person
that God meant you to be
Dad, family, fate, forgiveness, letting go, love, scars

We All Have Scars


I wanted to write about this yesterday, but with it being Thanksgiving, it would not have been a subject that is, in my mind, appropriate. I realize that one of the topics that I have dealt with on this blog has been fate. Another topic has been forgiveness and those who have the power to do it. Clearly, I have my views on the subject matter and I do not expect everyone to agree with me. One person who does not agree with me on subject of forgiveness has been my father.

We can have long discussions on this topic and will end up agreeing to disagree. As everyone knows I believe you need to forgive people (and yourself) in order to move on with anything in your life. To me, it is about the ability to let go of the past. A good friend of mine quoted me a poem, so will still this quote from her: Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. I am one to truly believe that there are things that you need to just let go of.
While having this debate with my dad, he brought up something interesting that I had not really thought about (he tends to do that). When bad things happen to people weather it is physically or emotionally, these “things” tend to leave it’s mark. We all have scars on our bodies and on our hearts. The thing about physical scars is that those heal after time, but yet you can still see them and will always be reminded of how you got them. Emotional scars tend to work the same way. While you may not see them, they will always be there and will never be forgetton…but they do heal.
My dad is not one to believe that time heals old wounds and I wonder if he thinks people can change (I will have to ask him). He told me that he has been burned more times than he cares to remember and will never put himself in a situation where we will be burned again. I will say that my father is a good guy who has constantly given people the benefit of the doubt. However, too many people have taken advantage of that and he has become less trusting of people in general. Of course, it is only worse when family is a part of that equation. So, forgiveness is pointless in many cases to him. If you had the nerve to burn him once (and is some cases twice), he will never allow you to do that again. He has been scarred and will never forget that.
I look at things a little differently. I have a few scars on my body. I know how I got all of them, most of which I got because I was being careless. While I remember them, they do not effect me; I just know that I was young and stupid. My physical scars do not prevent me for taking risks however, I am not trying to get anymore scars so I know to be careful with any activity. One thing that I can say about all my scars was that I allowed them to heal. I rarely picked at them because it would only make things worse when it comes to the healing process.
With that being said, my emotional scars are a lot to bear. I have scars from childhood through high school. Those scares have effected me and yet, has given me the strength to be what I am now. I also have scars for the careless things I have done to myself and other people. What I have found is the forgiveness has helped me heal those wounds. Forgiving someone does not mean you are giving them a pass to scar you again, it just stops us from picking at old wounds.
Let me inject a little fate here. Everything and everyone has a purpose in our lives. Getting scarred by others is a part of life. We learn from them. Sometimes the people who scar us are the most are the ones we love the most. Those scars make us the people we are and since we never know what the future holds, we never know if a scar we received in the past was meant to happen in order for us to be strong in the future. I think we all need to be hurt so that we know how to love. I am referring to the story of the perfect heart.
Ever time I read that story I think about how we all have to fail before we can succeed. None of us are prefect and we really should not expect perfection from anyone else. The number one answer has always been to cut off those people who hurt us but, does that really solve the problem or does the put a bad aid on the wound? There are people and situations that we need to face and things that need to resolved because in reality, emotional scars are very hard to heal without a resolution of some kind.
We all have those people that we will never speak to again. I have a couple of people who are on that list. It is hard to forgive people. I know that. But, holding on to things from the past makes it difficult to move on. We are not in control of the future. So once again, let go of the wheel...
letting go, my life, the moment

Living in the Moment

“The Secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, nor to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.” – Buddha

One of the things that I have learned, is how hard life can be. It is so very easy for anyone of us to live in the past or dream too much of the future. But, it is very difficult to just live in the moment. I think that this is something that I am slowly learning to do.

When people say to me that I have to take things day by day, I am not really sure how to take that. I understand that we all have to live life one day at a time, but I have been the type to consider my past as a part of the plan that I once had for the future. The problem is that I never really stopped to smell the roses. In fact, the only thing I really stop for is the smell of bullshit, but I am sure that is just the way life is.

I have come to learn that life is a series of little moments that I just need to enjoy. These are things that I cannot feel too deeply about. There are also bad moments that I cannot feel too deeply about as well. So no matter good or bad I just have to take everything as it comes. So the goal is to enjoy the good ones and dismiss the bad ones, while not taking either too deeply. Wow, that is really hard to do. However, these little moments that I have define my day.

I know that I can work so much that I may never go outside on a particular day to see the sky (even though it is cloudy most of the time). Many days can go by and I may not stop what I am doing to just go somewhere. I also know with all things that I think about when it comes my impending divorce, I seldom take the time for myself to do what I would like to do. Again, this is hard to do. Not only I am going through a life altering event, I am also altering my life in various ways.

There was a thought that perhaps I may be living in the past or just caught up by it. That may have been true some months ago, but I do not think that is the case anymore. I have painstakingly taken my time to go through every last issue that I think I have and analyzed them backwards and forwards. It would be foolish to say that I have addressed every issue I do have. So, I have learned to let many of them go.

Living in the moment for me requires a great deal of patience. It is a balancing act that I have to do so that I do not get too stressed or too excited about the possibility of things. I just need to take things for what they are. Through this, I see that anything is truly possible in my life. Some people has mistaken my willingness to live in the moment as me waiting for something to happen and that makes me smile. Right now, the only thing I wait for the right job to come along so that I can move on with my life. While that might be waiting in a certain sense…it is only because I put the effort into sending out my resume.

With all this being said, I really do plan out my future in terms of goals for myself. I have goals that I set a few months ago, but that does not stop me from living in the moment. I want to also point out that I am not running away from the past either, it is what it is. Thus, the balancing act that I speak about. Almost like a tightrope walk to whatever my destiny is.

divorce, letting go, love, my life, no regrets, overthinking

If I had to do it all over again, I would…

“I am a guy…when do we ever get anything right the first time?” – Hitch

About a week ago, one of my friends on Facebook posted this on her status: “If I had to do it all over again, I would…” First, I was amazed she got 38 responses. It was an interesting topic that had people thinking about regrets in their lives. It made me think about if there is anything that I may regret in the 35 years of being on this planet. My response to this status was simple: Everything happens for a reason. I am not sure I would be the person I am now if I made different choices…

As you very well know, I am the first person to admit when I am wrong or when I have made a mistake. Life is full of mistakes and we should learn from each one, I am just not so sure we should go back and reflect on them for very long. Of course, I am not talking about a life altering mistake in which someone goes to jail. In those cases, people have nothing but time to reflect on the choices that have been made.

I think about all the things that have led me to where I am today. All those decisions, to either take advantage of an opportunity or bypass one, is at the heart of who I am. I do not reflect on what could have been for too long because that is just not healthy. I will also go on record to say that I have no regrets. However, that does not mean that I do not acknowledge any of my wrong doings from the past, it just means that I am learning from the mistakes that I have made in both love and life.

I have come to realize that if there is too much regret from the past then it will be hard to seek happiness in the future. I know that I tend to be hard on myself. I tend make myself pay for all mistakes. I think it is human nature to blame ourselves for things and it may also be that same nature to harp on the things that we wished could have been. The problem is being able to stop myself from overthinking the past, which I do tend to do. Sure, it is easy to just say “It is what it is” and move on, but we tend to stick to certain points in our lives that just stand out.

I realize that overthinking the past simply means that I may have not let go of everything yet. We try to hold on to ideals. We try hold on to the memories because in certain cases that is all that we have. The concept of letting go is deep on so many levels. I have gotten to the point in which, if I am dealing with something that has to with a past issue and I feel hurt or stressed by it, I take a step back and tell myself that I have not let this issue go. I let the idea of letting go become a barometer for how much I have or have not moved on from a particular issue.

I consider regret as another way of not letting go. So, that is why I can firmly say that if I had to live my life all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. I am who I am, mistakes and all. Could I have done better? Sure! Could I have been a better husband? Absolutely! Could I have been a better son? Yup! Could I have been a better friend? Of course! But, I cannot regret all of that. I really cant. Because I know that through each phase of my life, I have had things that I was constantly dealing with that have made me question myself.

Now, I get to start all over again. A true clean slate. I choose who is in my life. I choose what I want to do. I now have a reference in which I can look back to and say, “I wont do that.” I know first hand consequences of bad decision making. This all comes back to what I have always said: things happen for a reason. In many cases, things happen so we can learn to be better people. Mistakes happen so we can learn to better ourselves.

I had a discussion with a friend about 2 weeks and I said to them: I have a new number 1 in my life…and that person is me.
divorce, letting go, my life, self redemption, Tyler Durden

Letting Go of Everything = Self Redemption

“Hitting bottom isn’t a weekend. It’s not a seminar! Stop trying to control everything and just let go…” Tyler Durden (Fight Club)

Today is the first time in a very long time that I woke up feeling great. I have learned to let it all go. The last few weeks I have been so bogged down about my life and how things are going that I have completely lost my sense of self. I lost who I was. I lost the motivation that made me what I am. Let me take it back to yesterday…

I was feeling like total shit yesterday. I didn’t sleep much at all. I was cranky and quite frankly, I was not feeling well. I decided to just go home and rest. I felt a migraine coming on. I get home and I nap for a few hours and I wake up feeling somewhat better. I left my laptop on, so I go to facebook. I scroll through all the notifications and I see one from am old friend of mine that just struck me: Letting go doesn’t mean giving up, but rather accepting that there are things that cannot be. This hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew at some point I needed to let go, but my view of that was me giving up on myself and my dreams.

I found myself just thinking different thoughts, but as usual. I was like, whatever. I went to look up some quotes to put as my status and something told me to look up quotes about letting go. That is when I found this site. I read this site 3 times.

Reading the information made me realize something very important. Up until this point, I was not ready to move on. I was holding on the remnants of the past. The reason for this is because I have never been able to forgive myself for the past. I have constantly blamed myself for this divorce. I have asked myself numerous times, “How could I allow this to happen?” I was holding on to the pain and anger of what was. Instead, I need to be seeking self redemption and acceptance.

I need to forgive myself for the part I played in all this, so that I can let go. This way I can examine and evaluate everything while looking into the future. I need to accept what cannot be. I made some mistakes and I cannot continue to make myself pay for them. Letting go is all about me. It is almost like a leap of faith. The future holds so many possibilities and opportunities that I found that I am holding myself back. I need to evaluate the people in my life and only deal with those who are positive.

Everything happens for a reason. I don’t say that in the sense that our fate is predetermined, because I don’t believe that. But, I do believe that everyone serves a purpose in all of our lives and we need to figure out what that is. When one door shuts, other doors open, so when something unexpected (or something I don’t want to happen) occurs, I need to do a better job in seeing the opportunity that may present itself.

I wont lie and say that I am already past everything. I will say that I am making that effort by recognizing that letting go can lead to personal freedom…and I need to be free. I need to be free to do what I want do, even if I am not sure what it is. What I need is face my uncertain future with a smile and know that I am ready for anything.

…and guess what folks? I am ready. I am not looking back anymore.

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” – Tyler Durden