Letting Go

My Loving People small group discussed issues of letting go last night as we are all determined to facilitate personal growth together this year. Letting go is tough until it starts to ruin your life.

Our great teacher imparted the following to us:

• Loving people are growing people who are continually changing to become better people.


• Safe people are spiritual and willing to look at their "stuff" or adequately self-reflect. They are graceful truthtellers while,


• Unsafe people are religious and "perfect." They are unwilling to learn because there is nothing wrong with them, legalistic, and show little grace.


• Love cannot be fully experienced unless you are growing.


• Trying to change doesn't work but training to change does work.


• Love is seeking and doing what is best for the other person at the expense of your own desires for the relationship.

All loving relationships take focused commitment to keep them healthy and each participant needs to constantly seek personal growth to sustain bonding.

I find it easier to focus on intimate friendships by choosing to live with less debt and less consumerism. (My small group doesn't lend itself to the impact of money issues on lifestyle choices but the connection of real living and letting go of materialism is striking.) My conversations with friends center far more around real life perceptions, ideals, imaginations, and creativity than ones projected on us by all forms of media, advertisements, and celebrity gossip. Even with strangers, the right questions lead us to deeper exchanges of thought, if only for a few moments, than the blathering of radio and TV.

Enjoying more of the stuff that money cannot buy, even though it sometimes feels uncomfortable, allows me to grow into more of my authentic self! Freedom!