Spending Life In A battle to let Go of the wrong things

​I've come to believe the key to a meaningful relationship is being comfortable enough within the space of that relationship to let go.

Let go of shame. Let go of guilt. Let go of struggles. Let go of emotions. Let go of the stories we tell ourselves that are unkind to ourselves.

All of these things we hold onto for fear of destroying ourselves and for fear of destroying a relationship are actually the things, that when shared, forge a connection.

They are the things that turn a regular relationship into a meaningful relationship.

Meaningful relationship: the sweet and precious home of no secrets.

Secrets are toxic. They are like poison. They eat away at our cells and at our minds and at everything we thought we knew about who we are.

Who we were.

And the only antidote for that kind of poison is the safety and the freedom to share.

To confess.

To own.

The only antidote is the invitation to be real and vulnerable.

And when we can't find that, when we can't have that, it's not like we become suddenly at home with our secrets and with our struggles. Not at all. It's then that we give up on antidotes and simply turn to trying to drown poison with poison.

Drown the poison of secrecy with substances or with our electronic devices or with our work or with food or with relationships that aren't safe places at all.

Until we come to know that poison on top of poison is the worst kept secret of all. It is a death sentence; maybe it won't steal your breath, but it will steal your life.

And thus begins the battle of letting go.

The battle of letting go of things we never dreamt we'd turn to let alone struggle every day to turn away from.

The battle of letting go of the seen because we never found a place to safely let go of the unseen.

It's a cruel twist of fate, really, this seemingly insurmountable battle to let go of the toxins that grew out of a seemingly insurmountable fear of letting go of all the struggles that gave birth to them.

A buddy shared this quote with me recently.

“You can’t force cohesion or unity. It doesn’t come from trust falls, gimmicky, bonding activities, or forced interaction. It comes from being real - from allowing people to lower their defenses and feel comfortable enough to be who they are. You can’t force it. All you can do is create the space for it to happen."

I fear we are building too many relationships on the gimmicky and not on spaces that allow people to feel comfortable enough to be who they are.

The results of that can be toxic.

They can leave us living a life of trying to let go of things we never would have had to let go of had we simply found a safe place to let go.

Because that is the one thing we are all looking for to some degree.

A safe place to let go.