Release your grip!

Today, I was confronted with truth that resonated in my heart; the truth is closely connected with our unlearning series this month. So, in raw form, as concise as I can make it, here it is:

I must release my grip on people, possessions and plans!

This does not mean that I don't enjoy these things; it's an issue of how they are held. Corrie ten Boom, a concentration camp survivor who traveled all over the world following her release shared a story about how to hold things. She took a thorn-stemmed rose and held it up to the audience. She taught that one could hold the rose a couple of ways. A first way was to hold it with a tight grip; immediately, the thorns would embed themselves and cause bleeding. If the rose was taken away, the process would leave deep, permanent scars. A second way to hold the rose was with an open hand; no scarring, bleeding - no less held.

The choice of how we hold on to people, possessions and plans makes all the difference. People will come and go. Possessions stop working. Plans need adjusting or discarding. Whether or not they injure is related to how they are held.

What must I unlearn? I must release my grip unlearning how to hold. I am tempted to write more, but as Mark Twain said, the good writer knows where to place the period.

~ Dean Boyer

Comments

[Steve Sherlock]

This is a very effective image for holding Dean. Thanks for sharing!

[Chris Bailey]

Dean, you've hit on something that I've wanted to blog about for a while, but haven't quite figured out how to do it effectively. A few weeks ago I was having a horrible day. Colleagues at work were giving me fits...clients were being difficult...everything was sitting in my gut and weighing me down. I felt tense as I laid down to bed. Then an idea came to me - seemingly out of nowhere - and I began the process of releasing the day. I silently verbalized it through a mantra of "I release [person or event]." There was some magic to it because when I awoke in the morning, I was refreshed and ready to approach the day with a new peace of mind.

Thanks for putting this out there and letting me release a bit of myself, too.

[Karen Wallace]

"The choice of how we hold on to people, possessions and plans makes all the difference." I have a 17 year old son in his last year at school, and he said to me the other day - Mum I'll be 18 soon, you have to let go sometime.

I was thinking about this conversation this morning, and then I found your post. Coincidence? I think not.