The Little Book of Letting Go

No one has ever been made more sensitive or more thoughtful by being judged, bullied, or frightened. Putting pressure on others doesn't change their hearts. It merely engages us in a pointless conflict that splits our mind and muddles our emotions.

Make your state of mind more important than what you are doing.

Not only do we give people a piece of our mind, we give them a piece of our happiness, wholeness, focus, and sometimes, a piece of our health.

The second step of letting go: To go beyond the obstruction, you must be certain that you want to.

The first step of letting go: To remove what obstructs your experience of wholeness and peace, you must first look at the obstruction.

Not only do we give people a piece of our mind, we give them a piece of our happiness, wholeness, focus, and sometimes, a piece of our health.

This one unnecessary thought lands him in solitary confinement and assures he will die alone. A mother who can't accept her son-in-law into her heart because he has “a lot of metal” (say, double earrings, a nose stud, and something rumored to be

In each of the encounters we have throughout the day, we leave something behind. In our wake people feel either more relaxed or more separate, more seen or more ignored, more peaceful or more conflicted. And every time someone comes to mind, either we send forth our comfort or our doubt, our blessing or our judgment. If we wish to know the One who is Love, we must extend love past the boundaries of our ego. But how is this done if not moment by moment, gesture by gesture? Only by giving the tiny miracles of understanding, support, forbearance, and happiness can we know Love.

Now our mind starts shuttling between revising the scene to our advantage and perhaps having a “payback” fantasy or two, and on the other hand, disliking the fact that we are obviously upset. We think, “What mistake am I making that causes these feelings?” Then we try to destroy the feelings with scriptural texts, mantras, or “common sense,” as if pure ideas on top of impure ideas make a clean mind.
Our desire to look away from our petty impulses is not a desire for more oneness, equality, or love. The reality that many people would be upset by what just upset us makes us uneasy. The fact that it happens to many drives us to resist it happening to us. In short, we don't want to be ordinary. We are among the chosen few who do not get upset. Where is the oneness and equality in that?

You want to sincerely see how much your body has undergone for you; how in so many ways it has been a good friend; how innocent it is of the genes it inherited, the climates it has endured, the accidents it has sustained, and all the other external forces like gravitation and sun rays that changed it in ways it could not help. In other words, you have real cause to feel affection for your body and to treat it gently