The Unforgettable Fire

January 10, 2016

To be sure my head and heart are firmly planted in 2016, I decided to try my “burning ritual” with Jerry this week in order to let go of what weighed me down last year.

Jerry and I sat down to brainstorm about what to burn…it wasn’t too hard to come up with a good list! I am pretty good at figuring out what we need to work on (Jerry is used to this by now – and he’s happy to be along for the ride). It’s doing something about it that is the hard part – that is work.

Here’s the thing. I know that I will continue to struggle with these things this year like I did last year – that is because of my wiring, because of past painful experiences (i.e. baggage), and mostly because I am an actual human being that is most definitely not perfect. And I am certain that more stuff is going to happen in 2016 – and I am sure some of it will be hard – and that some of it will be painful.

Just because I decide that I don’t WANT to feel a certain way doesn’t mean that I can say “poof” and make that feeling disappear. It takes work to process feelings. It takes practice. It takes raising my awareness – getting curious, noticing, acknowledging, and feeling, processing, re-framing, and understanding of my choices – to cope when I am triggered. This is work – and it is work I recommend to anyone who finds oneself constantly negatively reacting to triggers.

This is why I decided on a ritual…I know I can, if only for a moment, remember the feeling of letting go. Combine that with the physical exercise of seeing that trigger turn from a solid piece of paper to ashes in a matter of seconds, and now I have a powerful visual when I need more help.

The hope is that once one of us is triggered, we will remember the paper turning to ash, that we will remember our intention, and channel the “letting go” feeling.

We are off to a decent start. I found myself triggered almost immediately after publishing my post a few days ago. It was a great test to see if I meant what I said wrote about in that post. Jerry and I were in the car a few days ago when he caught himself – I was delighted when I heard him say – “wait a second – I burned that!” We high-fived each other and moved on with our day instead of getting bogged down in the muck. It won’t always be that easy – but that is why we need to practice. It’s like exercising muscles you never use.

My wise and wonderful friend Kelly recommended The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz to me back in December.

From the Four Agreements:

“Everything we do is based on agreements we have made – agreements with ourselves, with other people, with God, with life. But the most important agreements are the ones we make with ourselves. In these agreements we tell ourselves who we are, how to behave, what is possible, what is impossible. One single agreement is not such a problem, but we have many agreements that come from fear, deplete our energy, and diminish our self-worth.”

The Four Agreements are:

1. Be impeccable with your word
2. Don’t take anything personally
3. Don’t make assumptions
4. Always do your best

I already know #2 and #3 are HUGE challenges to me. They appeared on those pieces of paper that were burned into ash a few days ago.

I am about to dig into this book in hopes that it will help me in my efforts to let things go. More to come!