Release: to be freed. 

By Peejo Sehr 

What happens when we are tight, blocked, holding, restricting and constricting, in our bodies and in our homes, in our work places and in our religious communities. What would it feel like to let go and release? What are we afraid of? How does the notion of release frighten us? what do we need to release and why? What do we gain and what do we lose?  

I sit with these questions. Witnessing. Waiting patiently for the pain to pass. Knowing deeply that all is impermanent. Channelling the smiling voice of Thich Nhat Hahn reminding me "Long Live Impermanence".  

The opposite of release is imprison, to be restricted, blocked. There are a million ways that we imprison ourselves daily. We hold our breaths, live restricted, shackled, blocked. The ancient wisdom named this blockage in our bodies as disease. All disease is nothing but a blockage of chi, prana, life force, our inner light and radiance. We dim our light by giving in to this notion of holding tightly for dear life and in the holding, miss life. Somehow we have allowed ourselves to believe that if we stay in this state of restricted, holding, constraint, we are controlling life.  

We are so profoundly afraid and the fear has us holding tightly to our beliefs, our notions of others being different and not like us, of others taking away the limited resources that we have, of taking space that belongs to only us, of having a perspective that questions or brings doubt to our perceptions of who we believe we are.  

But what would happen if we were to release? To let go. Just for a moment. What would happen if we experience the deep expansion of air filling our lungs and then being released slowly from our bodies to merge back into space? What if we feel the release, the softening of our tight places in our bodies, in our minds? And we feel ourselves softening, letting go the controlling, limiting beliefs, the blocked energy constricting our experience of our fullest expression of our humanity? What would it take to give ourselves permission to be free? To know the freedom, the sweet release of judgments and limiting beliefs. Of leaving the judgement to a Source that is merciful and compassionate. To allow ourselves to let go. Just for a moment and feel the boundless trust of landing in Grace, where we are free of controlling, holding and protecting. Spacious awareness. All flowing into grace, in a rhythmic pattern reflecting the steady effortless ebb and flow of breath, of day flowing into night, of the heart beating in tandem with all of life. Nothing is permanent and yet all is transformation. Fluid. Movement. Brilliant. Constant.  

This is what we might discover if we but released and let go. And maybe, just maybe, we can rest deeply in this knowing and recover.