Letting Go with Grace and Ease

Hmmm, that sounds good you might think but what does it really mean?

For me, letting go with grace and ease means softening my resistance to what is - sometimes even when I don't know what it means or what will happen next. It means allowing myself to stay open and be with what is happening, rather than immediately viewing it through an old lens of lack, scarcity, or victimhood.

There can be a sense of expansion in that softening - more openness, more space, and greater freedom in how I meet what comes. I also still believe in resonance: that we can feel drawn toward or repelled by certain people, experiences, and environments in ways we may not always be able to explain. And I know that the state we're in, and the lens we're looking through can shape what we notice, how we interpret what happens, and how we respond.

When I resist what is happening, I can sometimes feel myself contract around it. I tense, brace, and become more fixed in how I'm seeing the situation. My attention narrows, and it can become harder to imagine other possibilities. Sometimes that contraction is important - it may be telling me that something doesn't feel right or that I need to protect myself or set a boundary. Other times, I can feel myself resisting what is, wishing it were different.

It's that second kind of resistance I'm talking about here. What happens if, instead of tightening around what is, I soften a little?

I’m going to tell you a story about what this looked like for me - something that happened to me today, in fact.

My old supervisor, the doctor who shares the office next door to me (and whom I sublease my office from) came in and said he wanted to talk to me.

He pulled up a chair and looked nervous as he sat down. He started to talk and then blew out and breathed in deeply. I could tell it was something important that he was going to tell me and that he was anxious about it. So I let him sit in that space and observed, knowing he would speak when he was ready.

And what he had to say was this – that he had rented out my office to someone else! Someone wanted to use my office and rent it full-time. Now, as I use this office only two days a week and they need the money for it, I could understand.

But then he said the guy wanted to rent it starting in 10 days from now! It’s not even mid-month yet and they were pretty much asking me to vacate immediately. They offered me a choice of either of two smaller rooms in this office space in the clinic.

My old supervisor was expecting me to be upset, I could tell, but I wasn't. I could see the sense in it and so I had no resistance to the idea, although I knew I would miss my office of five years and my beautiful view.

As I sat with what he was telling me, I realized it was actually sort of perfect. I had planned to decrease my days there anyway as I transitioned to another space and had been thinking about how to tell them…and yet here they were, offering me the perfect solution. Not only that, but the smaller office came with a vastly decreased rent.

I wasn't upset, although I did tell them I was staying until the end of the month since I had already paid for it. Other than holding my boundary about the time frame, I could let go into what was happening and see that this was actually a very good thing for me. I felt like I truly was in the divine flow - it seemed the universe was saying yes to my plans.

I could also feel how my response shaped what happened between us. He had come into the conversation visibly anxious, expecting me to be upset but because I wasn't fighting what he was telling me, there was room for the conversation to unfold without adding more tension. I felt surprisingly at peace with what was happening.

There is another story of mine that illustrates this as well. The last person that I dated, I really liked a lot. I stayed pretty open in my heart and in my relating with him, but there came a time when he felt something was off and pulled back. He was not able to maintain closeness and after a time, he told me this. He also said that he had been concerned because he didn’t want to hurt my feelings.

Here I had a choice in how I would meet what was happening.

I thought about it and felt into it - I could feel the sadness and disappointment, while also realizing that his pulling back wasn't about me. And I realized something else: this relationship had come so close to what I'd been wanting, and I had actually allowed myself to remain open - something I hadn't done much in the past.

And even with the disappointment, I found myself feeling hopeful and excited about what might come next. I could imagine meeting someone with whom there might be even greater resonance. And, as it happened, I did. I fell in love again. That relationship eventually ended too - life, apparently, had more in store for me.

In the past, I've found myself in situations that I resisted and resented - at times even became depressed about - and yet, as time went on, I was sometimes able to see them differently. Some even opened the way for things I had wanted but couldn't have imagined from where I was standing at the time.

I use these personal stories to illustrate what letting go with grace and ease has looked like for me - allowing myself to be in the not knowing, feeling into the experience, and softening some of my resistance to what is. When I can do that, I often find more space to meet what is happening with openness and curiosity.

Is there something in your life that you're resisting right now? What happens when you get curious about that resistance - is there something in it that needs your attention, or is there somewhere you might be able to soften, even a little, into what is?

You don't have to know what comes next. Perhaps that's part of the grace, too.