Letting Go

I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I have finally come to a huge realization about my life. And that is, essentially, that I don't need to be dependent on someone else to be who I want to and can be. Took 37 years to figure that out! I credit the spiritual teacher Nithya Shanti in helping me figure this out. In just 8 hours with him, I learned to really consider what is important in my life, what's important in me, and how to keep what I need to keep while letting go of that which I don't need.

Friends are extremely important to me, always will be. I love my friends fiercely, passionately, and with all that I am. However, sometimes it's acceptable to let a friend go, or simple to change their "status" within your life. This decision has been the cause of much of my personal turmoil throughout this year, and rightfully so. Letting go of a friend in any sense is not an easy thing to do. You were friends in the first place for a reason. It's difficult to come to the realization that you're just not as compatible as you once thought. And it's sometimes extremely painful and difficult to move past that and on with your life, without them. But sometimes, we need to go through this pain and difficulty before we can become a better person.

I have come to consider this Joseph Campbell quote a new mantra for my life: "We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." I'm beginning to understand how true it is that we get so wrapped up in whatever in every day life that we begin to take simple, yet very important things for granted. Every day I do my best to look at the simple things in my life that I can be grateful for. Every day I consider the good that has come of my challenges. And every day I deal with the fact that I had to let go of a part of my life.

I have put a lot of energy into changing the things that I came to dislike very much about myself, and I believed it could happen, and it has. I am a *MUCH* different person than I was a year ago. With courage, and the power of belief, and the love of my friends, I will continue to forge forward into a new adventure every day. And I believe that I will conquer all of them.