Among the most profound works of our adult lives is learning to let go of everything we care about.

Learning to let go of people we love.

Learning to let go of our projects, our possessions.

Learning to let go of experiences.

Learning to let go of emotions we’re holding, and that are holding us.

Why learn to do this?

Because, in the end, we will be forced to give up all of them.

And because in our capacity to let go before we have to – to give up our hidden, desperate holding on – lies the freedom to bring ourselves to everything without trying to own, control, dominate or force into our own image.

In letting go in this way, we let go of our own neediness. And it’s only in this freedom that we can fully encounter the aliveness of that which was never ours to hold in the first place.

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