Recently I did a beautiful meditation again led by Sarah Blondin on the Insight Timer app.  The intention of the session was to visualize us detaching from things that don’t always serve us like limiting beliefs, stale values, old narratives we’ve retold throughout our lives, relationships or conditioned ways of operating…all of the supposed to’s, the could have’s or would have’s.  Extracting these things can seem like a heroic (and impossible!) feat – but this visualization brought it within arm’s reach for me….imagine the freedom in being able to detach from old attachments that might have once served us but don’t continue to serve us anymore.

I often spend my days on the shoreline of my experiences and existence. I bask in the sunlight and lay on the warm sand.  I know this shoreline well, it’s crooks and crevices, the slight dips or sandy dunes…this shoreline is home to me.  Here on this shoreline lies all of the things I am used to, my place of comfort and familiarity; my judgements, expectations, idols and memories. 

 On the shoreline, I always keep a protective eye on the basket I carry around with me everyday; that in which I’ve collected precious seashells, people, beliefs and understandings throughout my years of life; from childhood until now.  This basket is the most valuable thing I carry, because  there was meaning I attached, to everything I collected from the moment I packed them away, even if today I can’t distinguish the times I might have created meaning only for meaning’s sake back then.

 This shoreline is my identity; where I’ve come from and where I stay, my lens – the place from which I’ve seen the world and understood and processed my experiences filtered by my emotions.  The shoreline is where I’ve kept myself fenced in and protected from the mystery and unknown waters before me.  Sometimes, I might wade out and let the water cool and intrigue me, but I never venture too far out.  I’d sooner dig my feet or bury my legs in the hot sand of my narratives, cycles and learned responses less I feel vulnerable, afraid or exposed – I keep my soft belly hidden and allow the sun to tan my back instead.  Every so often, I might wander down the beach and seek other likeminded or like spirited people who will reinform and reinforce the stories that I tell, who will nod, cry and collude as I tell them I have it all figured out; after all, there is strength in numbers, and if enough of us can believe, then we will all feel better believing.  

 In the past, I’ve tested myself and stepped further out into the water. Except when I’ve felt the water rising to my hips, with short breaths and a heightened sense of anxiety, I’ve quickly turned back to focus on the shoreline; the losses and disappointments I often revisit – the sorrow, the longing, the dreams, the escape and wishful thinking I feel more at home in, than the unknown in front of me.  Why is it easier to fix my sights on things seen and known, than close my eyes and imagine the mystery of magic and miracles.  But this time is different – the water is calling and intuitively I wonder if I am starting to outgrow this shoreline.  

 So I step out into the water, curious and nervous – but willing this time.

 I step into the waters and keep moving forward, small step by step and feel the water level rising up my body. 

I keep moving forward, small step by step until I am barely on my tippy toes with the water cradling my raised chin barely above the soft movement of the waves.

Here I am suspended on the cusp of old and new.  Old would be wading back, swimming back, running back – going back to what I know – new is not.  

While I wait, on this edge, I sense some unfamiliar safety – I feel the water holding me and gently rocking me…and without thought or conscious choice, I just let go – my toes don’t touch the bottom anymore, and instead of lost or drowning, I am floating upright and free.

I close my eyes as the waves continue to hold and gently rock me.  The mystery of this unknown feels safe and abundant – it feels limitless; and my hard edges melt and dissolve into the grandness cradling me and I can’t even tell where I end and it begins.  I feel light, wide open and trust it all.  It ironically, feels more like home to me.

Freeing ourselves from attachments is the willingness to believe there is potential and truth beyond them.  Freeing ourselves from our attachments is questioning them and not wholly trusting their value or usefulness.  Freeing ourselves from our old attachments is finding open spaces away from the clutter and collection of our recycled thoughts, feelings and beliefs…leaving the shoreline for the water and being willing to do so, trust and let go…no preconceived notions, no fears, no old us…

There are many unknowns beyond my 45 years of knowing;  life after love, life after youth, life after death – life in unravelling myself from the identity and meaning of every story I’ve ever told and distance and peace from anything I’ve ever been blindly or fruitlessly  attached to – out there in the deep depths of the water is where all of these stories stop being mine, because I can’t lug my heavy basket out there and presume I’ll float and not sink…if only we are willing to keep moving forward, small step by step until the water picks us up and we actually let it. <3