New Pathways

My numerological profile contains many fives, five being the number for freedom and variety. In the outward expression of my life there is much freedom.  Thanks to the way I am wired, the country in which I reside, and the support of many friends, family, and co-workers/bosses I live my life believing anything is possible and every opportunity is available to me.  I just have to go for it.

But freedom exists in the internal realm as well. As Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and global spiritual leader, says in his book, “you are here” — Freedom is cultivated by the practice of letting go.  Freedom of the mind.  Surrendering.  Which happens to be my word for 2018.

There’s a TV ad running right now for retirement planning and in the ad a middle-aged man is saying to his advisor, “At this age I am closer to retirement than I am to college”.  Wow.  That’s me.  Wake-up call.  It’s been too long.  It’s time to let go.  I shouldn’t still be carrying these things around.  Old wounds, old self-images, stereotypical ideals that don’t really apply, negative beliefs about myself, self-doubt.

Packaged with these thoughts are their physical reminders, of both good and bad times.  This week I’ve been going through a box containing items from my childhood.  Please tell me I’m not the only one with a box like this.  Baby shoes, a childhood doll, a glass animal collection, whimsical stories I wrote in 2nd grade, a baby book documenting my firsts, painful poems I wrote in my teens, professional photos taken at school dances, a stuffed animal containing all the tears of my difficult teenage years, a t-shirt embroidered with a sun for a singing group formed with my friends to compete in a talent show (we called ourselves the Sunshine Girls), certificates of achievement.  Part of me is afraid to let them go.  They deserve more than to end their lives in the trash can.  They chronicle my youth, reminding me of things I no longer remember myself.  Purging feels permanent because my mind is more a sieve than a trap.  It’s like bidding farewell to a part of myself.  It’s not like I ever plan to write a biography about my life.  I have no desire to root out causes and place blame.  And there are no children with whom to share these minutea memories.

There are thousands of paths that lead to happiness, but you have accepted only one.  You have not considered other paths because you think that yours is the only one that leads to happiness.  You have followed this path with all your might, and so the other paths, the thousands of others, have remained closed to you.  ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I have absorbed the experiences and feelings of my youth into who I am now even if I no longer have the supporting memories.  And that’s enough for me.  I will still be here, long after I have surrendered.

It’s time to honor that innate desire for freedom and variety and open new paths.  It’s time to let go.