There are things that we never want to let go
of, people we never want to leave behind.
But keep in mind that letting go isn’t the end
of the world; it’s the beginning of a new life.

unattributed

Today I am amazed at the things our children have done and their wide range
of interests.  They are all living their lives and not the ones I would have planned
for them.  But I have learned that their lives are theirs, not mine, and in living
their own lives they have given me experiences and an education I would never
have had if I’d been fool enough to make them do what I thought they should do.

Bernie Siegel
   

My father once told me of a trick question he used in a college class on forest
fire control.  If there was a fire coming from a certain direction and wind was
coming from another, what was the best thing to do?  The right answer was,
"Run like hell and pray for rain," but few students ever got it.  So allow yourself
the freedom of knowing there are times to bail out, quit, run,
leave the struggle, and have more time for joy.

Charlotte Davis Kasl
      
You don't realize that if you stop looking backwards craving the love and acceptance
which you didn't receive from your parents, then you might open your eyes to
what is available for you now.  But you won't let go.  If only you could see that
looking back into an incomplete and imperfect past, with regret, blame, guilt
or resentment is keeping you from the treasures that await you here now.
The past has gone.  You cannot rectify something that is no longer with you.

Leonard Jacobson
  
We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned,
so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell
   

The only things we can keep are the things we freely give to God.
What we try to keep for ourselves is just what we are sure to lose.

C.S. Lewis
   

Let go. Why do you cling to pain? There is nothing
you can do about the wrongs of yesterday. It is
not yours to judge. Why hold on to the very thing
which keeps you from hope and love?

Leo Buscaglia
   

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Letting go doesn't mean we don't care.  Letting go doesn't mean we shut down.
Letting go means we stop trying to force outcomes and make people behave.
It means we give up resistance to the way things are, for the moment.
It means we stop trying to do the impossible--controlling that which
we cannot--and instead, focus on what is possible--which usually means
taking care of ourselves.  And we do this in gentleness, kindness,
and love, as much as possible.

Melody Beattie
   

We find by losing.  We hold fast by letting
go.  We become something new by
ceasing to be something old.  This seems
to be close to the heart of that mystery.
I know no more now than I ever did
about the far side of death as the last
letting-go of all, but now I know that
I do not need to know, and that I do
not need to be afraid of not knowing.
God knows.  That is all that matters.

Frederick Buechner

  

The Tao Te Ching says, When I let go of what I am, I become what
I might be.  When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.
Have you ever struggled to find work or love, only to find them
after you have given up?  This is the paradox of letting go.
Let go, in order to achieve.  Letting go is God's law.

Mary Manin Morrissey
  

  
Trying creates impossibilities,
letting go creates what is desired.

Stalking Wolf, Apache elder

We must learn to let go, to give up, to make room for the things we have prayed for and desired.

Charles Fillmore

We must learn to let go as easily as we grasp
or we will find our hands full and our minds empty.

Leo Buscaglia
  
As I started to picture the trees in the storm,
the answer began to dawn on me. The trees in the
storm don't try to stand up straight and tall and
erect. They allow themselves to bend and be blown
with the wind. They understand the power of
letting go. Those trees and those branches that
try too hard to stand up strong and straight are
the ones that break. Now is not the time for you
to be strong, Julia, or you, too, will break.

Julia Butterfly Hill
  

There's an important difference between giving up and letting go.

Jessica Hatchigan
   
   
People have a hard time letting go of their suffering.
Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

Thich Nhat Hanh
  

The harder you fight to hold on to specific assumptions,
the more likely there's gold in letting go of them.

John Seely Brown
   

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To let go isn't to forget, not to think about, or ignore.  It doesn't
leave feelings of anger, jealousy, or regret.  Letting go isn't about
winning or losing.  It's not about pride and it's not about how you
appear, and it's not obsessing or dwelling on the past.  Letting go
isn't blocking memories or thinking sad thoughts, and it doesn't leave
emptiness, hurt, or sadness.  It's not about giving in or giving up.
Letting go isn't about loss and it's not about defeat.  To let go is
to cherish the memories, but to overcome and move on.  It is having
an open mind and confidence in the future.  Letting go is learning
and experiencing and growing.  To let go is to be thankful for the
experiences that made you laugh, made you cry, and made you grow.
It's about all that you have, all that you had, and all that you will
soon gain.  Letting go is having the courage to accept change,
and the strength to keep moving.  Letting go is growing up.  It is
realizing that the heart can sometimes be the most potent remedy.
To let go is to open a door, and to clear a path and set yourself free.

unattributed
   

Our fear is even stronger when
we think we are responsible
for others--our children,
for example.  We want
to spare them pain, and
so we forget to listen to
the Sound of Creation.
No one learns from
someone else's mistake.
If we respect others, we
must recognize that they
have a right to their own
dance. Their own spirits
will guide them.

unattributed
   

"We hold fast by letting go."  Letting go of our attempts
to control things, our attempts to maintain control over
every aspect of our life.  We've all heard the saying
about if we love something, we should let it go, and then
we'll know whether it "belongs" to us when we see
whether it comes back to us.  So much of our discontent
and our dissatisfaction comes from our unwillingness
to let go of trying to control things and trying to
cause just the results that we think should occur.

tom walsh
  
  
Healthy mysticism praises acts of letting go, of being emptied, of getting
in touch with the space inside and expanding this until it merges with the
space outside.  Space meeting space; empty pouring into empty.  Births
happen from that encounter with emptiness, nothingness. . . . Let us not
fight emptiness and nothingness, but allow it to penetrate us even as we penetrate it.

Matthew Fox
   

You hang on to the past hoping for what
should have been but still isn't and
never will be until you let go!

Stephen C. Paul

Every time you let go of something limiting,
you create space for something better.
   

One wears one's mind out in study, and yet has more mind
with which to study.  One gives away one's heart in love
and yet has more heart to give away.  One perishes out of pity
for a suffering world, and is stronger therefore.  So, too, it is possible
at one and the same time to hold on to life and let go.

Milton Steinberg
   
In the end these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you love?
How deeply did you learn to let go?

the Buddha
   

   

We need in love to practice only this:  letting each other go.
For holding on comes easily--we do not need to learn it.

Rainer Maria Rilke
   

Consider the trees which allow the birds to perch and fly away without either
inviting them to stay or desiring them never to depart.  If your heart can be
like this, you will be near to the way.

Zen Buddhist teaching
   
The clouds above us come together and disperse;
The breeze in the courtyard departs and returns.
Life is like that, so why not relax?
Who can keep us from celebrating?

Lu-Yu
   

The greatest thing is, at any moment, to be willing
to give up who we are in order to become all that we can be.

Max De Pree
   
   

I surrender my anxiety and my sense of urgency.  I allow God to guide me
in the pacing of my life.  I open my heart to God's timing.  I release my deadlines,
agendas, and stridency to the gentle yet often swift pacing of God.  As I open
my heart to God's unfoldings, my heart attains peace.  As I relax into God's timing,
my heart contains comfort.  As I allow God to set the tone and schedule of my days,
I find myself in the right time and place, open and available to God's opportunities.

Julia Cameron
   
We believe that it is difficult to let go, but in truth, it is much more difficult
and painful to hold and protect.  Reflect upon anything in your life that you
grasp hold of--an opinion, a historical resentment, an ambition, or an unfulfilled
fantasy.  Sense the tightness, fear, and defensiveness that surrounds the
grasping.  It is a painful, anxious experience of unhappiness.  We do not
let go in order to make ourselves impoverished or bereft.
We let go in order to discover happiness and peace.

Christina Feldman
     

   

Once we see that everything is impermanent and ungraspable
and that we create a huge amount of suffering if we are
attached to things staying the same, we realize that
relaxing and letting go is a wiser way to live.  Letting
go does not mean not caring about things.  It means
caring about them in a flexible and wise way.

Jack Kornfield
   
   

On Letting Go
 author unknown

To "let go" does not mean to stop caring. 
It means I can't do it for someone else.

To "let go" is not to cut myself off. 
It's the realization that I can't control another.

To "let go" is to admit powerlessness,
which means the outcome is not in my hands.

To "let go" is not to try to change or blame another. 
It's to make the most of myself.

To "let go" is not to care for, but to care about.

To "let go" is not to fix, but to be supportive.

To "let go" is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.

To "let go" is not to be in the middle, arranging all the outcomes, 
but to allow others to affect their own destinies.

To "let go" is not to deny, but to accept.

To "let go" is not to nag, scold, or argue, 
but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.

To "let go" is not to adjust everything to my desires, 
but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.

To "let go" is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.

To "let go" is to fear less and to love more.
   
    
We have come to look upon life as a conflict with death--the intruding
enemy, not the natural ending--in impotent quarrel with which we spend
every stage of it.  When the time comes for youth to depart, we would
hold it back by main force.  When the fervour of desire slackens, we
would revive it with fresh fuel of our own devising.  When our sense
organs weaken, we urge them to keep up their efforts.  Even when our
grip has relaxed we are reluctant to give up possession.  We are not
trained to recognise the inevitable as natural, and so cannot give up
gracefully that which has to go, but needs must wait till it is snatched
from us.  The truth comes as conqueror only because
we have lost the art of receiving it as guest.

Rabindranath Tagore
   

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Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get.  Life should be
touched, not strangled.  You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times,
and at others move forward with it.

Ray Bradbury