Letting Go Allows Life's Enchantment to Unfold


“The hardest thing for me was understanding that letting go didn’t mean letting go of people, places and things,” Darlene’s friend said. “It was letting go of my ideas about how life should go.”
Melody Beattie, Choices

Letting go is not about giving up on life or about abandoning people, places or things that we love. Letting go is about accepting everything about life that we have no power to control or change. It’s about accepting reality as it is, not as we want it to be, or how we think “life should go.” Reality is also about accepting people exactly the way they are and about discerning boundaries. Boundaries tell us where we end and others begin.

People in recovery rarely enter with good boundaries. We are so enmeshed in others that we can’t separate our lives from theirs, or our problems from the problems of those we care about. Here is a good litmus test for setting boundaries in terms of what problems are ours to own and what problems are not: My problems directly affect me (I have a bad cold or I am getting divorced). The problems of others indirectly affect me (My daughter has a bad cold or my parents are getting divorced).

If a problem directly affects me, it is my problem to own and mine to solve with the help of God and others. If a problem indirectly affects me, it is not my problem to own or to solve. It is someone else’s problem and I don’t need to be involved in it unless I am invited to help in appropriate ways. I must allow the person who actually owns the problem to solve or fix the problem themselves. This means I need to stop bolstering my self worth by trying to be Superman or Wonder Woman by solving other people’s problems. I have to let go of my compulsion to rescue others so that they will need or love me for having done so.

Sometimes this means simply understanding that life provides its share of problems for everyone and that we aren’t God. It also means understanding that God never bestowed the honor of doing His job on us. God never designated any of us as His Super Savior Mini-Me, except for Jesus Christ. So we need to relinquish our Super Savior thinking to God. Life is not fairytale world where we slay dragons and make all things right for everyone.

Many of us grow-up believing in a fairytale way of life, however. We want a Mom or Dad who showers us with love and acceptance, friends who like everything we like, easy “A’s” in school, and a prince or princess who will make our every desire a reality fulfilled. We want the perfect figure and hair, the ideal job and boss, great family relations and—maybe most of all—a God who’s there to make sure our fairytale bubble never bursts. This is the fantasy, or the ideas, that we need to let go of and surrender to God. They are the shoulds that make our lives miserable and unmanageable.

We can’t solve the world’s problems-- and we need to accept that fact. We can’t make Mom into June Cleaver-- and we need to accept that fact. We can’t fix a toxic person-- and we need to accept that fact. We can’t mend our son’s broken marriage-- and we need to accept that fact. Accepting these facts doesn’t mean we have to abandon anyone. It means we have to learn to love Mom or a toxic friend the way she/he is—even if it requires that we detach from her/him with love to protect ourselves. Or it means that we need to be an affirming presence for our son as he struggles with his marriage problems. We need to respect him refusing to take charge and by allowing him to solve his own problem.

Letting go of control also means that we cannot remake ourselves to be the perfect person that others want us to be-- and we need to accept that fact, too. Letting go means we accept ourselves, others and life just as they are— letting go of our fairytales so we can experience the real enchantment that life has to offer us. Letting go allows our souls to shine.


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