RElief: How Letting Go Raises Up Freedom
It almost didn’t happen.
I was helping a few clients manage some difficult times.
I was tending to family matters.
I chose to go to the coast instead. I wanted to create memories with our boys.
It’s the last day of the month and for the first time in 15 years in business, I almost missed a month with writing my monthly enewsletter.
Those of you who follow it know that I am committed to only sharing meaningful content. And I wait until I have something to add to your busy life. The last thing we would want as life managers is to add clutter to your life.
So I let it go. I am just past the point in my life where I do things just to do them.
We are getting increasingly free from obligatory living.
I was raised by my parents to keep my commitments, to do the right thing, to follow through.
And I do.
For the most part.
But finally – and thankfully – Trevor and I have decided to let ourselves off the hook from the routine, the perceptions of what’s necessary, and even the expectations of ourselves and others.
It’s such a Relief.
Relief means alleviation, ease, or deliverance through the removal of pain, distress and oppression. It’s remedy, mitigation, and comfort.
With dwindling days in the month, I decided to release my routine.
Not because there “just wasn’t enough time.” We can always make time for what’s important to us.
I released it because I’ve learned to trust myself and respond to the unusual happenings of life – they’re usually clues. (If you want more on trusting yourself, be sure to read last month’s Restore enewsletter “REsponsibility”.)
I released myself of “having to do it.” After all, it’s one of my favorite experiences every month; because I always go on an adventure when I write. I get to tap a higher way and bring it from heaven to earth to you (and to myself!) I get to be a conduit for freedom!
But when a freedom becomes an obligation, it’s time to trade up to relief.
And so I traded in the need to fulfill my commitment (to myself most of all, but also to you – our friends).
Unfulfilled commitments are not something I traffic with. They’re unfamiliar. Unpleasant. Unsightly.
Maybe you feel the same way….
Have you ever found it hard to let yourself off the hook? Especially from something you really wanted to do? Or felt committed to doing?
It’s hard, isn’t it?
But here’s the amazing thing….as soon as I let go of the obligation, the time and passion and even the seed of the idea came to me!
In fact, it was in the act of letting go that I freed myself and the remedy came!
Relief is a word from the Old French, and it’s the derivative of “relever.” In French, “lever” means to raise and of course as you know from every edition of Restore “re” means back or again. So, relief means to raise up again.
You see, when I was set free from the oppression of obligation, what was supposed to be birthed was raised up.
Can you imagine what things in our life – what dreams, what ideas, what great seed inside of us – is lying dormant – waiting to be raised to life…waiting for us to LET GO so it can rise?
Wow!!
What are the routines and obligation we are stuck in? We may have seen ourselves as being “committed” to these, but what if our perception of honor or responsibility actually kept us trapped?
What if doing the “right thing” has kept us from discovering the “new thing” that is buried inside, waiting to come out?
It’s deeply exciting to think about, isn’t it?
Now we could all sit down and make a list of the things we feel obliged to do and start re-thinking our responsibilities.
But that’s not organic. And – after all – the root word of “organizing” is “organic.”
Plus, it’s another thing to add to our already burdened to do lists.
The reason it worked for me to listen for the higher way was because I just did it in the moment. It didn’t happen all at once. I think about my enewsletter from the beginning of the month to the end, seeking both the opening in my schedule AND – far more importantly – the inspiration of it. But as each day slipped by and the combination of those two currencies never presented themselves, I became uncomfortable. I was challenged. I was facing the math of depleting days on the calendar and an idea seed that hadn’t shown up yet. Inside, I began to wrestle with the implication of possibly not delivering on a commitment.
But thankfully I’m far enough along my journey of reclaiming my life that I didn’t give into the DIScomfort. I let it ride.
So, if you’re inspired to find RElief from the routine and let go of obligatory living, here’s the secret: it happens incrementally, one choice at a time.
We trade in obligation and freedom raises up every time we listen and refuse to be drawn in by expectation.
We upgrade into victorious living when we won’t give into the structures that can so easily constrain us. But this takes conscious living – an awareness of what forces we’re subconsciously “under.”
We can’t just make a list and tackle it one task at a time.
We can no longer assume we know what is going to lead to our fulfillment.
I hope you’ll join our Restoring Order family on this journey. We’ve become more aware of what is going on around us, in us, and through us. We’re now “tuned in” to a higher heavenly way and we’re discovering liberating ways of living.
So, here’s to a newsletter that nearly wasn’t “born”. A seed that was germinating but could not be formed until the obligation of it was swept away.
Here’s to the redemptive reality of every good thing planned for us: it’s already there, but we must trade in what we know, and all our self-assigned obligations, to access it.
It’s so fun discovering the keys of integrated living with you, thank you for allowing me the privilege!
~Vicki Norris
Related:
- Sign up for our monthly inspirational [Restore] enewsletter
- Join the movement of Life Reclaimists by signing up for my free Life Reclaimist Jumpstart
- Visit our Life Reclaimist page for more resources
