No one can make us do anything. Only we have the power to do or not do whatever we do. That’s the good news, in fact. We are in charge of ourselves; no one else is. The freedom that accompanies this realization will lift our spirits throughout the day.
Karen Casey, Let Go Now, p. 9
To begin with, I think we have to cultivate our willingness to let go, that is, to detach from the trials and tribulations of our contemporaries if we want to find the quiet peace we long for, a peace that will allow us to truly love, to truly embrace, and to appreciate those who journey with us. In this process, we also give those companions the freedom to grow and to find their own way, thus their own eventual peace too. I don’t think we can come together as loving equals without embracing the willingness to detach.
We live very codependent lives, from my perspective. By this I mean that too many of us let even the whims of others — in our families, our communities, our workplaces, even in other parts of the world — define us, determine how we feel, and then decide what we will do next in many instances. Learning to detach allows us to live the life we were meant to live. By allowing other people’s behavior, good, bad, or disinterested, control us, we miss many opportunities for movement and expression in new directions. The converse is also true: if we attempt to control the other persons on our path, wherever they may reside, keeping them “attached” to us through any means (and most of us are very practiced at this), we immobilize them, thus preventing the growth they deserve and have been prepared for already.
— Karen Casey, Let Go Now: Embracing Detachment, p. 1-2
But how many of us are ready to abandon ourselves “utterly.” It takes courage to make such a surrender, and without the courage born of desperation, many of us balk. What will become of us we wonder if we give our lives utterly to God. We often have images of what a godly life means, and very often it means giving up things that we hold dear. We may have many ideas about God that say “God does not do business,” and so there goes our career. Or we may believe “God does not do sex,” and therefore there goes our love life. Very often our idea of God is otherworldly. We think of God as a monkish sort, disapproving of our involvement in the world. In short, we forget that God made the world and that nothing in it is really foreign to God. We forget that God is worldly.
God does do finances. In fact, turning our finances over to God’s care has often been a route not to poverty but to prosperity. God is an expert at husbanding resources. God is an expert at increasing the worth of what we hold. To involve God with our finances is to ask the source of all abundance to have a hand in our affairs. This is not folly. This is wisdom. But how seldom do we see it that way. For many of us money is somehow “dirty” and not something we think God can attend to. We think that ambition is something to be ashamed of, a secret that we can keep from God. We forget that there is no secret that we can successfully keep from God. God knows our worldly dreams and desires. Is it possible that God can help us to have them? That seems too good to be true. Instead, we act as if any success that we may have achieved has somehow been achieved behind God’s back and that the last thing we want to do is draw God’s attention to our finances. Our finances are nearly as secret as our sexuality. Most people have a hard time talking about God and money or God and sex. There is God, and then there is the rest of it. But where did the rest of it come from, if not also from God?
— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 123-124
Our innate idiosyncracies are actually more endearing to others than our most glorious personal achievements….
History is full of incompetent people who were beloved, blunderers with winsome personality traits, and inept folks who delighted their entourages with their unassuming presences. Their secret? To accept their flaws with the same grace and humility as their best qualities.
— Veronique Vienne, The Art of Imperfection, p. 9
When we rest in God, we begin to have a different experience of God. It becomes less about our striving and more about our receiving. God is the great giver, and too often we are too busy and too self-driven to be able to receive. We ask for help, but then we hurry blindly on, and when our help arrives, we do not pause to acknowledge its source, we just grab for it and keep on moving. “God help me” we pray, but when God does, we are often too preoccupied to say “Thank you.”
A friend of mine is worried about money. She is afraid of ending up out on the street. Each month she worries about where her rent money will come from. Each month her rent money does come. God opens some new door to her, and the flow enters where least expected. My friend does not thank God for this continued support. She is focused, always, on her notion that the support will soon stop. In this way, there is no way that God can ever do enough for her. No matter what miracles occur, she always wants more. Wanting more, she is blind to the fact that what she has been given time and time again is enough. We do not want enough. We want more.
— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 90-91
Ours is an abundant world, but it seldom seems that way when we are demanding more. When we say “Thy will, not mine,” we are saying, “This is enough,” and in saying that, we may actually have that experience. This is an experience of acceptance, and acceptance is usually the sticking point when it comes to our will versus God’s. We would accept God’s will for us if we could just see where it was going. If God would just give us a glimpse of what we were being prepared for, then we would go along with God’s preparations. If we are all indeed being brought along like fighters, then there is nothing random in what we are given. We are given just what we need at all times to further our spiritual growth, fund our spiritual development.
— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 89
Although long-term relationships and secure employment and living in that house feels good, remember, that’s not where your security lies. Let yourself bond. Get close to that woman, or man. Let yourself enjoy being friends with the best friend you’ve ever had. Be a loving parent, 100 percent. Throw yourself into that job with all your heart and soul.
But your security and joy are not in that other person or job. The magic is in you.
Don’t get angry when the time comes in your life to let go. Open your heart to that person, place, or thing, and say, “Thanks for teaching me to love and helping me to grow.”
Then let him or her go, without resentment in your heart. Because even though that time has come to an end, love can’t be lost. Even it means an end to the best time you’ve had yet in your life, look around at where you are now. Don’t forget to enjoy it, too.
This will be the next best time you’ll have.
Remember, love is a gift from God.
— Melody Beattie, More Language of Letting Go, p. 405-406
The truth is that although endings always involve us in pain, whatever comes into our lives and transforms us is to be celebrated. We don’t curse the person who brings us a bouquet of flowers because a few days later the flowers wilt and we have to throw them away. We celebrate the gift and think it is appropriate to say, “Thank you.” We’re glad to have had a chance to enjoy the bouquet as long as it lasted….
Whenever a relationship is given to us, we need to be grateful and rejoice. Even when a relationship ends, we should celebrate the fact that something has been exchanged that has been of value to both people. When we come to the end of our journey together, we should acknowledge that we are being delivered to the next place in our lives much more safe or whole, more at ease, or more expanded and complete as persons than we were when we entered the relationship. The selves who made the union are in much better condition at its end, even though the suffering and confusion of the ending often make this difficult to see.
If we look only at the relationship, then we must grieve; but if we look at the individuals who loved one another, then we can celebrate. Along with saying that the relationship has ended — something is gone — we should tell ourselves that something wonderful has been accomplished. What we have at the end of a relationship is two transformed human beings, people who have changed so much that they are now ready for the next miraculous stage of their personal development.
— Daphne Rose Kingma, Coming Apart,, p. 54-55
Who will I be if I seek only to do God’s will? Will I become homogenized, somehow diluted? A look at the natural world is reassuring here. Each flower — the crocus, the lotus, the delphinium, to name only a few — has its own unique essence. Roses, daffodils, daisies, peopnies, chrysanthemums — each has its individual beauty. Dogs, too, come in all shapes and sizes: Rottweilers, cocker spaniels, Rhodesian ridgebacks, Pomeranians, German shepherds, Irish setters, Jack Russell terriers, golden Labradors. The natural world, surrendered to God from the very beginning, is filled with diversity. Each creature is its own imprint, a unique manifestation of the glory of God. So, too, we are unique. That uniqueness does not diminish as we move toward God in surrender.
As we move toward God, our natural individuality becomes more vivid.
— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 44
In order to find a silver lining, we must be willing to look for one. At the very least, we must be willing to recognize one when it appears. We must be willing to be comforted in order to be comforted. We must maintain an openness to spiritual realities. We must be teachable in order that we may be taught. It is for this reason that the great prayer is “Thy will be done.” The surrendering of our independent spirits to a higher good makes it possible to find a path through darkness. “Thy will be done, O Lord. Thy will be done.” This is the prayer of the dark night of the soul. This is the prayer of surrender.
— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 43