If you're into yoga, this phrase probably sounds familiar. You may hear this at the close of some of your yoga sessions but do you really get the message? It's becoming abundantly clear that I have not. I'm a casual yoga goer in that I go when the mood strikes rather than on a regular basis. Yoga is where I turn when I need a mental "ahhh" since it affects what is going on in my mind as much as my body. When I started a few years ago, it helped me go from tense and anxious to feeling relaxed and mindful. I started tuning into my body more and since then, I've became more self-aware. 

 
The reason I'm thinking about that phrase now is that I just read a chapter from The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer today and I realized that I didn't really get that universal yoga session closing really meant. I just let those words flow around me like a cool breeze and let it just be a pretty sentence.

Then I read Chapter 8, "Let Go Now or Fall". It would seem that if you let go, you would fall but it's the opposite. Hang with me. I know, we're dipping our toes into some woo woo but I think this is stuff everyone could use a little more of these days. 

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At the beginning of the chapter, Singer states that we can either experience personal growth or create personal fears through our every day ups and downs. If we see fear as something that belongs to us, we basically go through life trying to create a safety zone that keeps it hidden away. But, if we view fear as just a thing like anything else, like a passing cloud in the sky or a passing thought, we can view it for what it is and let it go on by. 

If we choose to hang onto that fear and stuff it away somewhere, that is stored energy and not the good kind. Bad juju, bad karma. Call it whatever you want. It stays with us, bouncing around creating even more havoc in our lives. Havoc, I tell you! When hang onto the "bad" stuff in life, we end up sending out this negative ripple of energy. Eventually, that shit comes back to us like a tidal wave and we fall deeper and deeper into the dark. 

Singer says that if we let fear control our actions in a way to try to control our lives, all of this blocked energy ends up at the root of all that fear. And that, folks, is a really crappy way to go through life. The opposite choice of fear is personal growth. Life gives us situations and people that foster that can growth if we choose to just be aware of those situations/people. Not hanging onto them or overanalyzing the shit out of them. If we let them pass on by while resisting the urge to give the ol' one finger salute, we choose to stay in the light. This is how we can use the energy of the situation to strengthen rather than weaken us.

So...did I lose you? I feel you. I had to reread a lot just so I could really absorb what he was saying. I actually "got it" when I made a connection between something that happened with my son the other day and the point Singer is making. We had a fight that sent us both into a downward spiral. It was a weekend night and he was downstairs playing Fortnite (Dear God, please send a lightning bolt to our PS4 and make the game go away, forever and ever. Amen.) It was getting late and I was going to bed. Who knows how long he would stay up if I didn't monitor so I told him to turn it off. Of course, I got push back but I calmly explained that he gets up early three mornings a week for weights and conditioning at school and that getting more sleep during the weekend would be a great idea. 

He resisted again and after I exerted a little more force in my request, I swear I heard him say something very derogatory towards me. I was at the top of the 2nd floor stairs, he still in the basement, but he wasn't exactly quiet about it. I told my husband what he thought he said and he made quick trip to my son's room. Things escalated and I joined in the verbal volley. I

As I read Untethered Soul, I realized I had allowed his words (or what I thought I heard—he still denied it) take me to a dark place. Then I added to the darkness by my reaction. We went to church the next day and the message tied in directly into how I was feeling. I cried throughout the entire service. This is a contemporary church and thank God the music was loud and the lights dark. I felt like such a failure as a parent. I was supposed to be an example and instead, I showed him exactly how to show up.

As I read on in the book, I found this relevant passage:

If you start yelling at somebody, if you actually tell someone how you feel about them from this state of nonclarity, you have involved that person's heart and mind in your stuff. Now both of your egos are involved. Once you externalize these energies, you will want to defend your actions and make them look appropriate.

Hello. This is basically every single argument I've ever had. Then Singer goes on to say:

Now even more forces are keeping you down. First, you fall into the darkness (getting pissed about the comment rather than letting it go), and then you manifest that darkness. (How we ignored each other the next day and how I felt at church.) When you do this, you are literally taking the energy of the blockage and passing it on. When you dump your stuff into this world, it's like painting the world with your stuff. You put more of that kind of energy into your environment and it comes back to you. You are now surrounded by people who will interact with you accordingly. It's just another form of ‘environmental pollution' and it will affect your life.

If I would have chosen to let the hurtful comment go and opened my heart, things wouldn't have spiraled into the dark for both of us. If I had chosen to show up differently that Saturday night, perhaps I would have brought out better in him. Instead, I went right to my fear zone and my mom freakout showed up per use. My inner dialogue looked something like this.

If he stays up late, he'll be like a cranky toddler the next day. Plus, that stupid video game is going to become another addiction right there with his cell phone and junk food. He's never going to graduate college and he'll end up working a shit job. He'll live in a van down by the river or worse, want to live at home. I have to stop this now before he ruins his life!"

Good God woman. Yes, be a parent but let's not take a nose dive to “he’s going to Hell”. Basically, you either let go or you don't. And when you don't, the darker and deeper you go. 

I know my son is a great kid. Yet, he’s still a kid. I have to ask myself, "How do I want to interact with him? How do I want us both to feel in the middle of a difficult situation?" If I jump into the fray, we just get more fray. And I don't want to live in that space anymore.

If I choose to stay in the light space within myself, I will honor the light space within him--in everyone and every situation that life gives me. So there I shall go. Namaste.