Kenneth writes…

“The challenge of letting go is that even the dysfunctional, self-destructive aspects of ourselves are an integral part of the people we know as ourselves. The alcoholic or nicotine addicted or overweight or procrastinating you is not just a set of behaiviors, it is a core part of who you are, as much a part of who you are as your career or family identity. Simply trying to adapt a different set of behaviors doesn’t begin to get at the root of the problem. You need to be reborn in a very real sense, and to do that, part of you must die. To become a new person, you must literally abandon a part of yourself to die, with no guarantee of how or when that rebirth will turn out. As scary and depressing as addiction or other dysfunction can be, you know where you stand and what tomorrow will look like. The only thing scarier is having no idea who you’ll be or what you’ll do. Your only way forward is to understand and accept the need for the dying part, allow yourself to mourn for what you must lose, and come to terms with the fact that a part of you will always miss it. It also helps to focus on the excitement of new possibilities of what you will become. In my own spiritual path, death and rebirth are very much on my mind at this time of year as we approach holy days having to do with harvests. It’s a very bittersweet time, with perfect weather and sunsets and beautiful foliage, and yet it’s also the last gasp of a season we will never experience again the same way. Seeing nature on the macro scale helps me understand the same cycles on a personal level.”