We all see the wisdom in creating momentum, moving forward, and making progress in life.
Yet, there are various ways we trip over ourselves and get in the way of our own advancement.
One of the things that keeps us stuck, preventing us from stepping into a more meaningful vision for ourselves, is by holding onto things that need to be released.
People and relationships, jobs, perspectives and mindsets, beliefs, interpretations, hopes and dreams, expectations . . .
And plans.
And what “should have been”.
And emotions, like anger or hurt. And the need to be right. And restitution or “payment” owed us.
Maybe even money and material possessions.
And, of course, habits.
Oh brother, can we hold onto things.
But that’s understandable. Letting go can be hard, even for small “things”. At its most difficult, letting go can be heart-rending and gut-wrenching.
That’s because loss is painful. And none of us likes to be in pain.
Yet, to not let go of the things that must be released eventually causes us problems, sometimes to the point of even killing us, or killing a part of us.
LEARN THE LESSON FROM THE MONKEY!
Do you know how to capture a monkey?
One strategy has been to hollow out some coconuts and deposit nuts inside.
The curious monkey reaches inside the coconut and grabs a hold of the nuts.
However, by holding onto the nuts, the monkey’s hand (paw?) is now a fist, and no longer fits through the hole in the coconut. So the monkey’s paw is stuck inside the coconut!
The only way the monkey can get its paw out of the coconut is to let go of the nuts.
Having its paw stuck inside a coconut may not seem like too much of a problem, until Mr. Monkey Hunter comes along.
The monkey scurries away clumsily, attached to a couple of coconuts, and suddenly makes a discovery—it can’t climb a tree to evade the dangerous hunter!
So, the monkey now has a life-determining choice, literally—let go of the nuts in the coconuts so that it can climb to safety, or keep holding onto the nuts and get captured, losing its freedom and possibly its life.
Apparently monkeys opt for the nuts, becoming easy prey for their captors.
Something that seemed at first to meet a need now only ended up enslaving them.
Don’t be so hard on the monkey. People aren’t any different.
So let me ask you directly, what do you need to let go of?
--Sean Cox, Chicago