When you are holding onto things, whether it’s telling yourself that you dislike change or you don’t want to move on even when it’s a great opportunity or longing for situations that may not be in your path or right in the present. Clinging in relationships. You know that feeling inside even though you know it’s great or not great. It could still be that feeling of clinging. Anything where you could use the image that you had your hands clasped around something, even if it’s something that you must have – a degree, a kind of experience – and you find that it’s almost like no matter what you do you can’t get it.
Try is. Tighten your fists for a minute and feel how tight that is and that’s the feeling of closed and holding on. And then open your fists and feel the difference between openness and closed. Do it again. Tighten your fists. That’s it. Then open them. When you open your fists, it’s an image of free flowing onto your palm and off of your palm. When your fist is tight, nothing comes in and nothing goes out and this is the metaphor.
Let go and grow. We just looked at the let go part. And the grow part… when you are holding on, you are sort of stationary and static. Maybe it’s out of fear, that’s often the case, and even so your smarter self can see the wisdom of opening up to grow. A flower doesn’t stop itself from growing. It goes from a bud to a flower. As human beings we are like ever blooming flowers that go on and ever develop.
What can help the tendency to hold on? What can you do? You can practice the opening and closing of your fists. You can sit quietly and allow yourself to pretend that you are a flower. You’re here to grow and develop. As children, it comes naturally until we get scared and stop our growth to protect ourselves. Sometimes we are not even thinking about it to close down in order to protect ourselves from something that didn’t feel good. As adults, we’ve already been through the rigors of difficult situations. I’d say that no one makes it into adulthood without surviving all kinds of childhood and adolescent trials and tribulations.
So you have already made it. The rest is to relax and grow and get all the help you can to relax. It might be through meditation, through recordings, through the help of practitioners, massage therapists, body workers, psychotherapists, hypnotherapists, exercise, using your body and your mind. It might be taking up an instrument or Karate or something new that you’ve never done before. You never know what’s going to open up your mind. You can do a directed education on this or with the help of a practitioner. There’s classwork and studies and plenty of self-help books about mind over matter or body and spirit, influences over your mind, body and spirit. I think the best is to set the intention and to work at it. Then relax into it. And then it becomes very natural to let go and grow.