The Art of Letting Go

Hello all,

Welcome back to our beautiful, messy, and chaotic shores… I hope you are all doing well this week. Thank you so much for taking the time and energy to set sail back here to the ocean waves of my mind, I appreciate it more than I can express. This week has been very inspirational and motivating for myself. Earlier this week, a friend and I went down to L.A. just to explore and ended up on the side beaches of PCH. In times like this, I feel at my most creative, inspired, motivated, and peaceful… I can just feel my energy shift into a more serene realm if that makes sense. While driving along the West Coast, my friend and I stumbled upon the topic of forgiving…which is something I have longly struggled with myself. Ironically, before my friend and I landed on this conversation, about a week ago my mom, brother, and I were all having a conversation about this very same topic and in both conversations, I feel I realized two very important idea’s: Forgiveness is not a necessity and Forgiving someone doesn’t mean you actually have to speak to them.

Forgiveness to me is not a necessity but rather a luxury because only YOU can produce the positive, reliving feeling to someone once you tell them “I forgive you” or start to act like it by being welcoming to them again. By what I mean by this is that some people who have hurt you, who are to hurt you, or who are currently hurting you, do not need to know you forgive them depending on the situation and added factors. I remember when I was studying psychology, I read a quote in one of our books (I for the life of me cannot remember who said it) that said: “Forgiveness is experiences inside one’s skin”. This single quote helped change my entire view on forgiveness. If I’m being honest, I was always very reluctant to forgive someone who caused great pain to me because I always felt that was handing over your power to them. However, I learned that when you hold onto certain pain, anger, and grudges you only trap yourself on this ferris wheel of rumination, which is accompanied by nothing but negative emotions, stress, and anxiety. If you separate your emotions and mind from the situation and/or person that is causing you great pain, it can help provide you with an outside-looking in perspective that can help you develop a new perspective that may guide you into the direction of forgiving, I’ve learned.

In my silence, forgiveness softly grew,

A gift you’ll never know is for you,

For the pain you caused me, I release,

Because I am too caught up

In my own inner peace.

Thank you all so much for taking the time and energy to surf through my ocean waves, I appreciate it and you so, so much! Also, thank you for your support, motivation, and inspiration that pushes me to keep paddling through these sea’s…I am beyond full of gratitude. Sail back here next week for more! Take care of yourselves and stay safe.

With great love always,

M.H. John