Astro

I've never been good about letting anyone go. Ever since those first relationships in my teens, I've rarely parted as friends with someone, most of the time I left claw marks before I released them to live the life they wanted.

If you looked back on my history at SR, you'd see that when I came here I was just starting to scratch the surface of understanding my codependency, and I've still got a lifetime of work ahead of me. But with the help of some very special people here, I was eventually able to let go of someone in my life who had a toxic effect on me. As usual, I was struggling with letting go, I couldn't see the "Big Plan", I was gripping tightly becaused I feared the loss of that relationship.

One of the people who helped me most had a signature line (a quote from Helen Keller) that said: When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us. That woman is my fiancee now, we share our home together. One day at a time, our life unfolds into "The Big Plan".

It's pretty amazing to experience the path of life, and the plane of growth, especially when I'm not interfering with it. This meditation made me think back a few years to when I registered on SR, I'd like to share it with you too......

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves, without any insistence that they satisfy you.
--Dr. Wayne Dyer

It's generally a struggle to let a child develop a new skill, particularly if it's not one we share or appreciate. It's even more difficult to watch a spouse or lover travel a new path of learning or recreation when we're not invited to share the trip. Yet assuredly, our love is only as deep and real as it is honestly supportive of others spreading their wings to discover their own directions and personal joy.

What is right for us will never be lost or taken, and that which departs, be it friend or lover, is only making way for our own next plane of growth. We must not fear letting our loved ones experience new and separate challenges. Instead, let's rejoice in the knowledge that we each have a particular calling, a unique destiny that has brought us together and will keep us together for just as long as "the big plan" calls for.

We can't keep someone's love for us when we've made them prisoners in our homes and hearts.

You are reading from the book:

Worthy of Love by Karen Casey. Copyright 1985 by Hazelden Foundation.

Gypsy Feet

Thanks Astro, I have a couple of fav quotes from HK as well, what an amazing lady!

This concept was so freeing for me. My adult daughter has just hit a "party stage". I thought it was my job to direct her away from danger and back to safety, until I found SR.

Now she is walking her own path, and I no longer obsess about her night and day. She is in the care of a Higher Power, who can handle the job much better than me.

luciddreamrgrl

Beautiful post. Thank you.

Pelican

I Love this place!

Thanks Astro!

I'm glad you followed your heart and posted that here today. I needed to read that at this time. Thank you.

TakingTime

Thank you for this. I too have always struggled to let people go...holding on to two other relationships (while not alcoholics, other addictions and problems) WAY past the time I knew to move on. Same with friends really. It's a lack of trust that, as you say, another door will open...a fear that somehow I don't deserve to have something better, that this may be 'as good as it gets'...

Astro

That's exactly the way I see it too sometimes, as a lack of trust, a fear. But the good news is that when I let go of the fear and let faith take over, it gets better, and better, and better.............there's almost no limit to how good it can get. With the occasional setback of course

Chrysalis123

Thanks, Astro. That was exactly what I needed to hear today.