Release or Re-Lease?

A week or so ago, on these very pages, I committed myself to taking a spacious summer breath; to remembering how to let myself go with the current that the world--my world-- is offering me rather than to struggle against it. Becoming spacious, opening up space in your life can be tough. It's hard letting go of things, people, ways of relating in your world.

I've noticed that people often replace the word "space" with "time" in their way of thinking. I've certainly done it. "I need to free up some space in my schedule," No, you need to free up some time in your schedule. They actually aren't synonymous. Time is linear. Space is circular if anything.

So what is space to me, and why am I devoting my summer to creating more of it? Space, to me, is about having some breathing room, options, possibilities, angles, and, okay, time too. Time in the form of pause.

The Spacious Breath of Summer and its 10 Rs, was conceived by me on Thursday, June 18 during a long personal writing session. Rather than jumping right into the practice of it, I decided to start on a Sunday. Sunday's are good starting days . . . I suppose that notion goes back to my Protestant upbringing. But, no matter, it felt right to weave in a few days to just sit with the idea to see if I would actually step into it. For three days, I just sat back and began recognizing what was what (and I suppose this could have been the preliminary R: recognition), I proceeded, last Sunday to RELEASE. To let go of anything and everything that no longer served me or enhanced my life.

I actually love the word release, because it implies a sensitivity, a caring, even a degree of love, as much as it empowers you to active role in parting with something, someone, or a way of being in the world. To release something is not to look back and judge, but to look forward and acknowledge. To release is to not place things in the category of good or bad, but rather to see what is enhancing or diminishing your life.

The key for me in this release week was to not anticipate what needed or wanted to be released but to allow it to arise as self-evident. I tried not to think about it so much as to feel it and even to wait for these intimiate strangers to announce themselves to me. A few days in, there came a moment when a pattern that I've been habituating for a year or so tapped me on the shoulder, "Excuse me. I somehow seem to have gotten attached to your coat, and although you are great company, this really isn't my direction, nor is mine yours. Can you release me from your hold so that we can both go our own ways?"

And just like that, I knew I was done with that. Five days later, the pattern hasn't surfaced once. And so it went every few days, another shoulder tap, another ,"Excuse me," followed by my acknowledgement, "Yes, you're right. Thanks for what you brought to the table. I am glad to have known you despite the fact that yes, you are right we truly are tangled up, and I, too, am feeling stuck and bound by you. I release you."

My patterns and I were having a breakup conversation. A very mature one. No tears. When the time is right, it's right.

Now, as my release week comes to its close, I have a new ease. I actually feel better than I have in quite awhile. I feel better in me and the perspective from which I'm viewing things. Do I dare say, I feel more spacious? As the saying goes, I have a new lease on life . . .

or is it a re-lease on life?