Check this out: This is great. Everything he writes is almost always great.

It's interesting how letting go is actually, in some ways, letting something take hold of me, have its way with me.

Letting go is not banishing or throwing away. It's not necessarily saying
goodbye to something. It may be simply allowing it to fulfill its purpose within me.

So how does that actually work?

I sit down to meditate. One of my goals is to stop thinking about elephants.
And sure enough a huge elephant pops up in my consciousness. At first he
just stands there quietly. So I block him out. He appears behind me and raises his trunk and bellows.

If I demand that he go away all that will really happen is that he will do his
various dances to torment me.

But if I say, okay Elephant, here you are, do your thing, whatever you have to do, he will do his dance, use up his energy and I will be thinking about
flamingoes.

Or, and this is a major flash, he may have something important to say that I
need to hear. There are lessons to be learned in letting go too. What I am
letting go of is my resistance.

When I am threatened by an idea I may try to reject it. My fear builds a wall. When I let go, I let go of the wall. I let go of the stick I am beating it with. I let go of the anger that is trying to scare it away.

I accept the idea in the sense that I allow it to travel freely in my
consciousness. But I don't defend it either. It's on its own, has to survive all by itself.

Fighting it or defending it gives it energy and staying power.

So I'm letting go of my own struggles, not the idea. The idea finishes itself off, wears itself out, dissipates, and I am left cleansed or enlightened.

Emanations
Copyright © 2005  by John MacEnulty
5/24/05, St. Louis, MO

Emanations is now a BLOG at http://emanations.blog-city.com/

Current read: Silent Bob speaks by Kevin Smith. I love Kevin Smith. Good guy. smart. Witty. Funny as all hell.

And still reading the diaries of Brian Eno. This is a bible for me right now.

Today I got a haircut. I was so worried being in a strange place and not speaking Italian. But this guy was amazing. he spent hours with my hair. He was so passionate. Reminded me of Federico in New York who was also Italian and very passionate about hair. He told me how awful whoever has been cutting my hair is in Miami. I told him I just haven't been able to find anyone in Miami. Very nice to connect with someone again so passionate about hair and style. The salon was very styled out. Not pretentious. Again, it is a cool without pretension. Something Miami has not learned yet. You can be cool and nice and open and real. They are not opposite qualities. People smile here. men play with children in the street even though they look like they just walked out of a photo shoot for GQ magazine. it is very nice. it is an innocence that is very refreshing and heart warming. Very different than the New York, LA, Miami vibe of ‘if you’re cool/good/successful, then you’re kind of a snob or a tough guy or a jerk. [this is really funny but one time when I was getting my haircut from Federico I asked him where he was going for the weekend and he didn't want to tell me, I pressured him and he said he was supposed to keep it a secret that he was going to Disney world with his wife and kids, because his boss would get mad at him cause it did not seem cool—it could hurt the salon’s image. Can you imagine? Well that's New York. Not here in Italy. Guys are more than happy to show off their families.]

Riding through the narrow cobblestoned streets amongst the very tall old old old brick buildings and churches and squares and palaces, I was thinking tonight that I could see how this could get old if you grew up here. especially if you see America on TV with all its new stuff and shiny happy people. this could definitely get old. Everything is old here. climbing the stairs tonight looking at the old stairs and the old walls, it made me long for something new and clean and pristine looking. 

Received an email from Cleopatra tonight. It was so thoroughly depressing. It was so simple but it just brought it all rushing onto me. Just this agonizing feeling of loss. She tells me that she knows by the pain in her stomach that we are doing the right thing. I emailed back I will stay away for as long as it takes. I hope one day after we are all dead we will be able to sit down and chat and laugh and say wow, I tell her.

I don't know what it is, just this pain inside like I have no one, no family. If I really just let go of Cleo and Bas and her whole family and the different companies we have built over the years I just don't know who I am right now. who is my family. Realizing that I have been living through them and with them for so long I don't know how to feel safety or comfort right now on my own. we have all been living together for eight years. o.k. so now I leave it all, and start a new life. what? Where? With who? Thank God I still have my mom and my real family and all that but I have just felt so close to Cleo and her whole family for so long its crazy. I feel like an orphan. This awful feeling. Like I am studying over here for 6 hours a day. Why? For who? Can I live for just myself? Do stuff for just myself? I think I am having an identity crisis. It is truly fucked up. So there we are. That's how I feel. thank God for Little Tree. She is like a surrogate mother/wife for me. takes good care of me. Madelynne too. The Artisan does too. Send me things in the mail. Emails all the time. It is very nice. to have these women in your life who take care of you and you aren't going out or anything. what I don't like is when chicks are just being nice to you and taking care of you because they want you to be their boyfriend.