Letting Go [Re upload]

So that first question, how much do I let go? The reality is sometimes we don't want to let go.

There are lots of spiritual teachings across the board on letting go of things.

Well, maybe we don't want to let go of things.

We might be finding a certain kind of comfort in our things.

So when is it that I need to look at how I release, literally release some of my stuff The stuff around me.

And when is it okay, appropriate to have this stuff? When is it useful to have this stuff? You know, where's that piece in there? The first part of that really is kind of noticing that maybe even some of the stuff we have this feeling we should let go of.

I'm going to talk about that in a minute.

We don't want to let go of it.

What about when it is an argument? I appreciate Cooper naming a difficult conversation.

One of my daughters once wisely said she and I had just engaged in a difficult conversation and we were kind of like untangling each of our roles in the conversation afterwards in a way that was really, really useful.

I'll never forget her saying very wisely, but mom, why would anyone want to back down in an argument? when being righteously right feels so darn good.

Why would I even want to let go? And then they're like all of the ways what we're looking at are these kind of internal images and identities that we're holding onto in some way or another.

Sometimes we might be real conscious of the identity change, retirement.

For some people, retirement is such a relief because the identity in the job was a mismatch or didn't feel good in some way.

But if part of the identity in the job has some kudos that are... being held onto in a way.

Retirement can be really hard to step out of the identity that has some meaning to us.

I got a very early taste of this far earlier than retirement age when I walked away from medicine about 20 years ago and didn't even know until I tried to walk away from medicine how wrapped up I was in the identity of being a physician.

Had no clue.

Thought I was quote unquote above that kind of stuff.

Well, nothing like trying to walk away from being a physician to like show you, oh.

You know, just normal human here too.

So they're the kind of in your face identity issues that come up in like a job change or something like that.

But I also want to name the more subtle behind the scenes, the shadowy image identity issues we all carry.

but we might be far less conscious to.