Let Go or be Dragged

Something amazing happened to me this week in my acting class.

I was performing a scene with my scene partner…………

……………and I forgot my lines.

That’s right.

In the middle of what is arguably the most important part of the scene, my mind went completely blank and I couldn’t remember my next line.

………..And somehow it was one of the most transformative experiences I’ve had in the 9 months, 2 times a week, I have been taking that class.

For most people, myself included up until now, that is an absolutely terrifying moment. To be on stage in front of people is already a wild act of vulnerability but then to actually forget to do the thing that you’re supposed to be up there doing?

In every sense of the word it sounds like and can very much be a nightmare.

But not this time. Not this week.

Why?

Because the reason I forgot my line is that I finally let go.

I’ve been working on this scene, which happens to be both very intense and deeply relatable, for the last 6 weeks and I felt like I’d hit a plateau with it.

I was delivering the lines perfectly and there were emotional components that I was certainly able to access but something was missing.

I didn’t know what I was missing until last weekend when I was practicing the scene with my boyfriend and for the first time I actually allowed myself to be present with the emotional depth and complexity of what was really happening in the scene (a couple realizes they need to get a divorce because they don’t want the same things).

I had been so focused on doing the scene right, getting the lines right and making sure I still looked good while being on stage, that I hadn’t really allowed myself to fully experience the words I was both hearing and saying.

So fast forward to class and now having this emotional reference point, I told myself right before going on "just let go"…….and I did.

I was so present in the scene and so attuned to what my partner was saying and the impact it was having on me that I let go of what I thought I was supposed to be doing, what the scene was supposed to look like or what I even looked like.

……….and I forgot my line.

Now thankfully I have an incredible scene partner and he picked up that I was lost in the moment and he continued on so nobody actually noticed (god bless Earth signs) and we were able to finish the scene.

And it was the best performance both of us had given in that scene in the 6 weeks we’ve had it.

Why?

Because I finally let go of the tight grip of how I thought things should go and actually just allowed the truth of how I actually felt and for the moment itself to naturally emerge.

And guess what? It was ok. I was ok. In fact, I was more than ok, I was on a high from seeing the beauty that moment actually created.

How often do we do this? How often do we hold on so tightly to how we think things should be going that we lose sight of what is trying to come in (that is usually better)?

You see, we hear these words, this phrase, this declaration: let go. just let it go. Let go, let God.

But what does it actually mean to "let go"?

The phrase gets thrown around like it’s this one time simple thing that we just decide to do and suddenly *poof* it’s done.

Sometimes we may have the capacity to have it be that easy but more times than not it doesn’t work that way because we as humans do not like change. We fear change. We fear being out of control. We fear the unknown.

Letting go is absolutely a choice, but it’s usually a choice that we must make over and over and over again and as great and as necessary as "letting go" is for our evolution, most of us resist it with all of our might because it doesn’t feel safe.

And the brutal ironic truth is that the only thing that’s safe to assume is constant…….is change.

It’s going to happen whether we like it or not (a lesson I’ve had to learn more times than I can count) and at this point in life, if I can help it, I try to lean in and create as little resistance as possible.

Because as someone once told me, and I have very much experienced:

"Let go or be dragged."

The beauty is that when we do finally "let go" whether that be a job, a relationship, a pattern or a belief system, we are almost always better for it. It usually marks our next stage of growth and we often wonder why we didn’t do it sooner.

But we let go when we are ready to do so and not a moment before and when we look back on it, we realize that despite the potential struggles or challenges or rollercoaster of emotions we may have gone through, that it was actually the journey of getting to that point that was the most significant.

There was likely a reason it took us as long as it did for us to get to that point, we are all on our own timeline, and while there are certainly some aspects that are in our control, the timing of our "letting go" moment is definitely not one of those things.

So we do what we know we can do:

• We let go in the small or big ways that’s available to us; we take action where and when we can

• we notice the resistance (because there will certainly be that) and we offer ourselves curiosity and compassion around it

• We take care of ourselves; We create space in our nervous system and build our capacity to be with the discomfort that letting go i.e change can bring up for us

• We honor and celebrate where we’re at right here right now because if we were meant to (and ready to) be somewhere else, we would be.

This is not always easy but it’s always worth it. Whenever we let go of something, that in it of itself is like a death and most of us struggle with the concept of death. We struggle with endings but with every ending there is always a new beginning.

You got this. I promise you will be ok. There is so much more waiting for you on the other side.