Yesterday I lost a friend, but gained the world!

All through my childhood I was taught when not to let go and why it was important to hang on firmly. Kites, balloons and mothers’ hands were created to teach us this all important lesson. The monkey bars and ropes at gym class explicitly taught us to hold on for dear life or plunge into an abyss of pain and bruises. Classrooms were designed to teach us that letting go equated to failure. And well meaning adults preached never-endingly about how relationships were based on self-sacrifice, clinging on and staying stuck, even at the cost of heartbreak, disillusionment and abuse.

Even though I evolved from a clumsy toddler to an independent, strong, mature woman, letting go was simply something I was not ready to consider. A life time of well-meaning counsel and conditioning is not easy to let go. A fear of condemnation and the unfamiliar made me believe that misery and the status quo was the better option.

Sometimes it takes heartbreak, defeat, loss of health, an unfortunate encounter or maybe even an enlightening book to wake us out of our anaesthetized coma and make us realize that we are worth so much more than what we're settling for. When we grasp the truth that clinging on to the past is like holding on to your baby walker even after you can walk. When we see the value of emptying an old closet of mind baggage, to finally receive the blessings of what we truly need. When we finally realize that when we let go of who we are, we realize the potential of what we can become.

In the year long process of letting go, I certainly lost many things including friends from the past... but I finally started finding myself. Letting go was a tough process of releasing old attachments and notions that no longer served me, emotions, grudges, fears, frustrations and disillusionments of the past that had weighed down my heart. I had to make a conscious choice to shed the ‘old me’ every single day.... to help renew, release, and therein be reborn anew. To my surprise I realized that Time was not the great healer....letting go certainly was.

So what did I gain from my purge. Well, I certainly attained peace of mind, balance, and harmony within. I won freedom from unnecessary internal turmoil, and reclaimed both my mental and physical health. Letting go also allowed others to take on greater responsibility for their lives and actions, and enabled me to break free from situations that never belonged to me in the first place. Letting go of people who had weighed me down for too many years helped me to finally soar high and pursue my own maverick dreams.

I was finally able to find my long lost self-respect, my faith in God and the universe, and most importantly, my voice!