Letting go and letting be...

I remember learning about the difference between "letting go" and "letting be" during a MBSR programme.

The coach was holding a bunch of keys in his hand, he gripped them tight, as a metaphor for holding on. He then turned his hand downwards and open the hand, the keys made a loud noise when it hit the floor to show what letting go can be perceived as, and maybe why it can seem hard to do. He then grabbed the keys once more, gripped them tight and instead of letting go, he just held his hand open facing the sky as a metaphor for letting be. And all of us in the room felt the calm that came from that gesture. It was an amazing way to show the difference between "letting go" and "letting be". So in times when letting go might feel too much to do, then letting be and therefore learning to accept a situation or a feeling can be a good way to start working with the process of letting go.

In Sophrology we use visualisations techniques to help with this process.

If you want to do a quick exercice:

- Seat down comfortably on a chair and gently close your eyes. Be aware of the connection of your body with the chair, feel your back against the chair, your buttocks, your thighs all pressed against the chair. Now feel your feet on the ground. Relax your entire body from head to toes, feel your body melting against this chair. Now imagine an object in front of your eyes, choose whatever object comes to your mind, the object itself isn't important. Now really visualise it in all its details, the colours, the shape, zoom in to get closer, zoom out to see it move away. Stay with this object a few minutes.And now let go of the image and reconnect yourself to your breath, to the air coming in and out, reconnect yourself to your body, to the chair.

Whenever your are ready gently open your eyes.

This exercice is great on many levels, and one of its values is to learn to come back to yourself, recenter and maybe begin the process of learning to let go of something.