The Living

How do we let go of the living?

In Hebrew the word tikkun translates to mean “repair” or “healing to full potential.”  It is what many of us desire, dedicate or lives towards, rip our hearts apart for, abuse ourselves for, go the distance for, take leaps we would never have dreamed of taking, show ourselves our courage in ways we never would have imagined... for an ounce of healing, an ounce of relief from the pain of a loss we cannot bear for one more moment.

How do we let go of the living?

How do we let go of the living when we know they go on in spite of us?  When the bottom line is, they no longer want to love us?  

I think the first thing we have to do is let go of wanting to know “WHY?”  Wanting to know why the others have made the choice or choices they have made.

That why is the TITANIC without a single lifeboat.  It tears and rips you apart and tears away at the fibre of your being and literally can beat away at the essence of your soul if you keep asking the question.

So we simply must stop.  We must.  Because it will drown you.  No lifeboat.  No one there to pull you out.  No one there to monitor you and to tell you to stop it.  No one to tell you are on or off track.  Doing well or poorly.  

Nothing but your own heartbeat.  And when you can hear it beating, then you actually know that you are not sinking.  That god has opened your eyes for another day for some purpose even if you don’t know what it is.  But it is not for the sake of asking why.  This is one thing I know for sure.

I think the purpose is for us to keep going.  Even if we are wasting away.  Even if we don’t know how.  Even if we feel so betrayed by love and loss that we have betrayed our very own selves to the point that we don’t recognize the reflection in the mirror.  The wasted shadow of who we once were or perhaps the figure hiding inside a protective covering.  

How do we let go of the living?

Maybe by pardoning ourselves our own humanity.  We are not the monsters others are determined to believe we are.  Some people must turn us into a delusion because they cannot face the full truth.  The truth about love.  The truth about regret.  The truth about mistakes.  The truth about betrayal.  The truth about grief.  They simply cannot hold it all.  And so they carry stories which simply make us ugly.  But if you are an authentic seeker, there is no hook.  

Healing can happen without agreeing on the truth no matter how sad or painful the story.  As long as you can hold the whole of the truth.  If part of the whole of it, is that you are not loved by someone you wish to be loved by, then until there is utter surrender and acceptance and a willingness to stop wishing it were different, there is no way to let go of the living.

We let go by not resisting what is real.  What is real.  And what is really happening in an ongoing reality even if it is one we resist.  Even if it pains us.  Even if we see a simple solution.  

Even if the living live in our hearts.

Godspeed.

2.5.13

Jill Bacharach