A Reason for Everything…Let it Go!
I talk a lot about letting go and people nod, nod, nod and then shake their heads in hopeless confusion. Let go how? of what? when? and why? It seems an impossible concept to grasp. “How can I let go? Doesn’t everything happen for a reason? What if I let go of the wrong thing?” It’s a conundrum. In a societal, cultural structure that has told us to achieve, acquire, collect and attain it is a challenging concept to wrap our noodles around. We’ve been taught to grab on to that brass ring and never let go. And we’ve learned well…we hold on to our hearts, our feelings, our thoughts and belief systems, our ways, and our stuff.
Unfortunately, holding on to things is contradictory to the process of life. Everything in our world is impermanent. Every thing will rot, it will decay, it will die or it will simply change. To make sense of our lives as they are we try to create meaning around our things, our belief systems, our habits and the happenings of our lives. By creating reasons we give ourselves permission to hold on to things. On one hand we want to be free of the linear systems and on the other we try madly to recreate them forward. In one breath we try to be creative and open and in the next breath we are already trying to stuff everything into line where it makes sense. We are always trying to understand things from a meaningful point of view, from a reasonable perspective. Reason, after all, is what makes sense of this world and of us. Reasons assign the value of every thing and every happening. When tragic things happen we imploringly want to know why. Unfortunately in determining reasons we can often lose the magic of the moment.
My Mind Says That There Is A Reason for Everything
There have been many times in my life when I have congratulated myself on being even-tempered, non-emotional, logical and reasonable. I am often able to see both sides of a situation, and be very sympathetic to the other persons’ position. I have prided myself on having big shoulders and bearing the burden in a situation because it seems easier for me to carry the load than passing the responsibility on to the appropriate shoulders. My very clever mind has always been extraordinarily good at ‘understanding reasons’ and creating reasonable projections into the future. My very clever mind, however, has not always been very good at just being with what was without reasons. I am learning. I am finding it’s enough to just be. I am discovering that often when we jump on the reason train we escape a situation before we’ve had time to really feel it out.
We use reasons to blame, to find fault, to create acceptance, to excuse behaviour and to create purpose. Can you accept your life and all the pieces in it without having a reason for them? Does that sound unreasonable to you? Can you accept a blessing without asking why or what for? Can you be present to another’s unbearable pain without trying to find a silver lining reason or purpose for it? These reason-making exercises are just occupations of a clever mind. Let go the need to explain, the need to project, the need to plan, the need to understand, or the need to know. Believe me life goes on without having reasons.
Fact is there may never be known reasons for everything no matter what my mind likes to think. We live in a cause and effect reality. Everything that happens stems from something. In this dualistic reality we can expect this to be the way it’s going to keep playing out. So we can effectively look behind us and see how things led to this moment but we have to be very careful how we extrapolate the present moment in to the future. Equations that cause effects that look like reasons don’t necessarily belong projected into the future. Sometimes it is simply more prudent to take the mind off the job and let the heart guide the way. Let go your reasons and have a little faith!
Heart Will Lead Us Down Uncharted Paths
When we search for and create reasons for events or situations we limit outcomes. We dictate a flow of energy that makes sense to our own minds for our own purposes. By determining a possibility we limit its’ whole expression. The value of any moment is to be with it in the moment as fully and as emotionally as possible. The heart will authentically guide us toward our next moment. We may be able to come up with reasons to create the next step but this is unnecessary. When we breathe in and out we don’t think of when the next breath will come, we don’t think how to take the next breath, we usually simply allow it to arise when it needs to. When the body needs to breathe it will. The naturally ever balancing aspect of our bodies and of our universe is to accept the moment fully as it is, feel the most personal relevancy in the moment and allow the next moment to swell up automatically without dictation or direction. Have faith that it will. The Heart that is connected to all the rhythm and synchronicity of the universe will in fact guide us perfectly.
There have been many times in my life when I have mollified myself by saying that everything happens for a reason. In hindsight I realize that most of these ‘reasons’ were simply excuses to avoid looking at the real issue, or to avoid doing what actually needed doing or even to avoid just sitting still. Sometimes we inadvertently build convoluted rational mazes just to keep ourselves from making the appropriate intuitive choice.
I have a couple of friends right now that are suffering in their need to take the next step yet are unable to figure out how, where or why. They are looking for reasons, for explanations and for purpose. So focused are they on there being a reason for their discomfort that they are unable to see that they are creating 
the bulk of their discomfort simply by not moving with the natural ‘swelling’ of the next moment. Their pain is caused by trying to validate their past experience as a reason for something else, they cling desperately to the past hoping for a different outcome.
Move On ! Let It Go!
So when I say let go I mean let go of your logic, let go of your reason making, let go of your need to understand why, let go of your mind needing to figure it out. When people experience emptiness in their lives, they struggle to fill it with something that made them feel good in the past. The approval from others, the love from others, recognition in success, or some other kind of validation. Leave all these things in the past, leave them in their time, let go and move forward. Allow the magical unknown nature of our Universe to blow a new possibility into your reality. Realize that you are pulling a sled of used up experiences with you that make no sense in the future. Let the new moment be fresh, filled with new life force. Let it swell up inside you with the next breath. It will.
Andrea Thiel Connell 