Letting Myself Fall

“Leap and the net will appear.” - John Burroughs

I have this image in my mind. I'm clutching this giant rope that disappears upwards into a starry night sky. My knuckles are white as my hands try to hold onto the rope, my arm muscles tense and feels like they will rip fighting the fall, and my legs swing wildly over what seems to be an endless abyss. My hands are slipping, little by little. I am so scared. Then, I can't take it anymore the pain of trying to stay on the rope is too much.

I fall backward, I scream, the unthinkable has happened. I will surely perish. Then - I am caught. I land softly into this in an interstellar energetic net. It holds me, embraces me. I breathe deeply - I am safe.

In my life, I have clutched many ropes. The familiar pain of trying to hold on feels somehow better than the terror of letting go. Previously, I refused to let go. I hung on and I suffered until I couldn't hold anymore.

Now I'm experimenting with what it looks like to release the rope. To decide this doesn't work for me and let go. For me, the only way to do this is to believe that something will catch me. To know that the universe is guiding me to let go and fall into what it has planned for me.

Here's what it feels like. I was in a difficult situation, for the sake of my own privacy and that of others I'll keep it general. I cried a lot over it for several years. I told myself that I could make it better. I clutched so hard, just willing myself to love the experience of hanging on. I would slip a little and then grab on again harder than ever.

While I was dangling, I worked with my own shame. I looked at my childhood, I gained empathy for the little girl that was trying to protect herself then and still uses outdated mechanisms to protect herself now. I spent time with her and listened to her. I began to know and love myself. As my body felt more comfortable, the familiar discomfort of hanging onto the rope started to feel more foreign - and more painful.

Observing the starry night sky I was poised in, I began to remember what I knew as a child. There is something - call it Divine Consciousness, call it the Universe, call it the Tao, call it God - that is here with us and is us. I realized religion was just people all calling attention (mainly dysfunctionally) to the presence of this force. We all feel it. We all have always felt it. I stopped trying to figure out what it is and just focused on sensing that it is. I became less scared, I began to trust that what felt like an abyss below me also must be filled with this force. 

My hands were burning and slipping down the rope, the pain intense. Instead of trying to grasp tighter, this time I wasn't so scared of what would happen if I let go. I lifted one finger and then another, and soon I was sliding off. 

I'm now falling backward in the liquid night punctuated with glimmers of stars.

I haven't hit the net yet.

Some moments I forget to trust and I want to scream with the fear it won't be there.

Then I feel that something and I know the act of letting go is what will allow the net to catch me.