Tag Archives: cool

Beautiful Letting Go

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It’s finally fall. In Texas we’ve been enduring ridiculous October days with high temperatures in the 90s. This makes us cranky, unable to breathe and creates fashion problems because you cannot wear sweaters and cute boots when you are having a heat stroke. We can’t decorate because pumpkins rot so fast in hot weather and rotting pumpkins is not the look we were going for.

Just this week the weather finally has turned for us. There are no words for how this feels. I made tortilla soup and pumpkin bread as fast as I could. I was ready with long pants, a long sleeved shirt and fuzzy socks for the first time in what seemed like decades.

Yesterday, I saw this quote for the first time, “The trees are about to show us how lovely it is to let the dead things go.” I don’t know who said it, but it caught my imagination. My yoga teacher often says at the end of our practice, “let go of that which no longer serves you.” In yoga, for me, that is stress, a busy mind and the bound up feeling in my joints. I always think about what else I might need to let go of as well.

I’ve never before tied autumn to the practice of letting go. But, as the leaves release, perhaps so should we. Maybe it is time to let go of a bad habit, a toxic relationship or  the clutter in our homes. Maybe it is a season to let go of an old hairstyle, a resentment, an anger or a destructive grief. Maybe it is time to release the clothes we’ve not worn once 1977 or from 3 sizes ago. Maybe it is time to let go of a job, a burden or that worry that you will never fix. Maybe it is time to release our resistance to help and call the therapist, the doctor or call on God.

More than once, I’ve had to call on God’s spirit to let go of something that was no longer serving me. The prayer was simple, “God, I need you because I cannot let go of this alone.”

Imagine, in this new season as we marvel at the golden, orange and red leaves of fall, breathe in the crisp cool air, make and eat pumpkin everything, that we are also taking our cue from nature and allow a beautiful letting go.

 

 

 

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The Sweet and the Bitter

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This past week I’ve been acutely aware of some milestone moments, like the two year anniversary of my cancer surgery.  I was aware of feeling so grateful not to be re-living that day again but also so happy to be two years down the road, still here, still healthy, enjoying life.   At the same time, our son got his Aggie ring at Texas A&M…you have to have 90 college hours to even order it.  Then, to get it, such a moment of pride and celebration.  We Aggies take Aggie rings very seriously.  We have 9 Aggie rings in our extended family.  Sweet.  

Intertwined with all that came the news of the shooting at the Naval yard shootings.  Bitter.

Friday night as we were celebrating with our son and his friends, we were on a covered porch enjoying dinner outside.  It was pouring rain and it was cool outside.  We haven’t seen rain in a long time in Texas, nor felt anything like cool air. Sweet. 

Then came the news of the shootings in the park in Chicago.  “Really?” I thought,  “Another shooting?”  Bitter.

Saturday was one of those amazing beautiful days in Texas, we were with our family and friends before and after a great Texas A&M football game.  Sweet. 

But in Kenya, there was terror, lives lost.  In Pakistan, a church shooting that killed so many.  Bitter.

I learned a long time ago that life is bittersweet.  The beautiful milestone moments are always mixed with difficult times.  I also learned a long time ago that none of us can be truly happy as long as one of us is suffering.    

What is so unbelievable is that we are doing it to ourselves.  Humans gunning down one another at work, in the park, in the mall in places of worship.   We do need saving from ourselves, we really do.