The Language of Letting Go: July 29th

Have Some Fun

Have some fun. Loosen up a bit. Enjoy life!

We do not have to be so somber and serious. We do not have to be so reflective, so critical, so bound up within the rigid parameters and ourselves others, and often ourselves, have placed around us.

This is life, not a funeral service. Have some fun with it. Enter into it. Participate. Experiment. Take a risk. Be spontaneous. Do not always be so concerned about doing it right, doing the appropriate thing.

Do not always be so concerned about what others will think or say. What they think and say are their issues not ours. Do not be so afraid of making a mistake. Do not be so fearful and proper. Do not inhibit yourself so much.

God did not intend us to be so inhibited, so restricted, so controlled. These repressive parameters are what other people have imposed on us, what we have allowed to be done to us.

We were created fully human. We were given emotions, desires, hopes, dreams, and feelings. There is an alive, excited, fun loving child in us somewhere! Let it come out! Let it come alive! Let it have some fun - not just for two hours on Saturday evening. Bring it with us. Let it help us enjoy this gift of being alive, being fully human, and being who we are!

So many rules. So much shame we've lived with. It simply isn't necessary. We have been brainwashed. It is time now to free ourselves, let ourselves go, and enter fully human into a full life.

Don't worry. We will learn our lessons when necessary. We have learned discipline. We will not go awry. What will happen is that we will begin enjoying life. We will begin enjoying and experiencing our whole self. We can trust ourselves. We have boundaries now. We have our program for a foundation. We can afford to experiment and experience. We are in touch with our Higher Power and ourselves. We are being guided, but a frozen, inanimate object cannot be guided. it cannot even be moved.

Have some fun. Loosen up a bit. Break a few rules. God won't punish us. We do not have to allow people to punish us. And we can stop punishing ourselves. As long as we're here and alive, let's begin to live.

Today, I will let myself have some fun with life. I will loosen up a bit, knowing I won't crack and break. God, help me let go of my need to be so inhibited, proper, and repressed. Help me inject a big dose of life into myself by letting myself be fully alive and human.

From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.

**********************************************************
 Now go and make
interesting mistakes,
make amazing
mistakes,
make glorious and
fantastic mistakes.
Break rules. Leave
the world more
interesting for your
being here.
—
Neil Gaiman


 Finding the balance between too
much and too little risk is a challenge.
Some of us are risk-averse by
temperament while others seek out risk.
Some of us were taught to be cautious,
others to be adventurous. Still others were
not taught either extreme and have found
a middle ground. One thing that many of
us have in common is the fear of making
a mistake.

A mistake might be a choice that does
not provide what was wanted, or it might
be something seemingly catastrophic.
We are all conditioned not to make
mistakes—to get it “right” every time.
For many, there is a visceral response to
finding out that a mistake has been made.
But mistakes are really just opportunities
to learn and to grow. We often miss the
growth opportunities in our mistakes,
because we are so afraid to deal with the
situation once the mistake has occurred.
It is time to realize that there are no
mistakes. There are only opportunities
to make a different choice. We can never
go back and change things in the past;
we can only move forward. The choice
to move forward in a positive manner
means that we choose to move through
“mistakes” to great success. So let’s make
great mistakes—the kind that lift us to
new levels of being!

AFFIRMATION

I make amazing
mistakes. I immediately
learn and move
forward. I release the
need to live in fear, to
see myself as incapable,
or to live in
limitation