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Ripening Release: Loving Without Grasping · Infinitely Precious

• 0:00
  Intro: Welcome to the Infinitely Precious Podcast produced by Infinitely Precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.
• 0:12
  James: Hello, beloved. It's me, James, and it's another opportunity for us to be together here on the Infinitely Precious podcast. This week, I continue my series about the ripening dimensions of our lives. I talk a little bit about them specifically. I've referred to them as both practices, but they're really more than practices, dimensions of a life as I see them.
• 0:41
  And ripening in the sense that in any given moment we might be as ripe as we can be in that moment or not ripe, moving further along as we ripen more deeply or as we become overripe or unripe in the way that we approach life. If we aren't fully present, fully engaged, we might miss out. This week, I'm going to be talking about ripening release. Release, when I think about that dimension, I think about sort of an umbrella of various categories, ways of seeing that fall under this idea of release. And so I begin visually, personally, and physically by clenching my fists, closing my hands, and then imagining grasping something and what it feels like to release those things.
• 1:48
  Have you ever held onto something so tightly in your hands? Maybe it was some keys or it was a piece of rope while you were trying to steady something and it actually left an impression on your hand And releasing it became harder. How does it feel in your body? I ask to release something that we have held on to. Well, releasing what falls under that broad umbrella for me are a number of ways of seeing the world in which we live.
• 2:29
  One is releasing time. We find ourselves in an ongoing continuum. And sometimes we have moments that are high points that we want to hold on as defining moments. And sometimes we have low times and we also hold on to those as defining in some various way. Our lowest point, most difficult challenge.
• 2:58
  And those by holding on, holding on tight to those, we might learn some lessons from them by holding on. But by holding on tight, we can't fully perceive them or move on from them. We imagine when we're holding on to those high points of our lives, those so called mountaintop experiences that we might never again have another mountaintop experience. And as long as we measure everything by holding on to that original mountaintop experience, nothing does seem quite the same. Same is true of holding on to those low ebbing moments of our lives as if they might define something about who we are.
• 3:42
  And by holding onto it, it keeps us from moving on to new perceptions about what we learned in those broken moments of our lives. I don't want to denigrate the high moments or the low moments because they both matter. But when we hold too tightly to them, we don't allow for ourselves to move forward in time and experience this new moment with what it has to offer. Because we're always in a sort of a compare and contrast mode for the high moments, the low moments and maybe even the mediocre previous moments of our lives. We use those as comparisons.
• 4:21
  And so when we don't release things, they become objects of comparison. I think that love is something we should hold lightly. And I say that with great sobriety. I'm not saying that love doesn't matter and the significant people in our lives don't matter because that's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that at all.
• 4:45
  I'm saying that every person, every being with whom we are in relationship is constantly in the process of changing, of becoming, of growing. And if we can't let go of that person they were in order to allow them to be received as the person that they are, we might not be able to continue to be in relationship with them. I remember a piece of relational advice I got somewhere along the line from someone. And then it popped up in several other places over time. And that is if you're going to be married for a long time, you're going to be or in a relationship for a long time, you're going to be falling in love with a person over and over again because the person, as they grow, is different from the person you started out with.
• 5:44
  And grasping on to the first person you met, that person who hadn't had these years or these weeks or these months to grow, holding on to that person and expecting the person with whom you share your life now to be the same person they were back then kind of confines who they can be and confines who you can be in that relationship. We are constantly growing and changing. And so we have to hold lightly to the person, not wanting to control or shape or make them into anything other than who they are, and allowing ourselves to this space by not holding on, by releasing to fall in love with the person that they are right now. The things that are being revealed about them right now. To receive them in this moment.
• 6:43
  Not in the moment that came thirty four years ago or three weeks ago, but to receive them as the person that they are in this moment. I'm not saying we don't have history, we don't have memories, we don't carry those things with us, But we must also hold lightly to those because the person who is in front of us right now is bringing themselves to us as they are in this moment. That is the pain they're currently carrying, the joy they're currently carrying, the challenges they're currently facing, the celebrations that are happening within them. All of those things are being brought to us in this moment. And so a ripening release is learning to let go of those things, to let go and to move on.
• 7:37
  Perhaps a word that came to your mind right at the beginning of release and it sure falls under the same umbrella is that of forgiveness. Forgiveness is certainly a piece of this. When we don't forgive, when we don't release that which has been done, what we end up doing is trying to hold on to a past that can never be. Demand something that cannot be made the way that it was. It's it's it's it's broken.
• 8:11
  It can be healed. It can be repaired. But what comes on the far side is something different. What this reminds me of and I discovered this in the last year and it had a deep impact on my own understanding of theology is Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery using gold to reconnect it. So when you hold the pottery in your hand and the end after it's been repaired, what you see is not what was originally there.
• 8:53
  It's got scars. It's got clear demarcation of its breakpoints. And yet at the same time, it's back together as a whole. It's not the same as it was before. It's different.
• 9:09
  It is changed by the scars it carries. And I believe that's what happens in forgiveness. We can forgive someone else who has in some way impacted our lives and scarred us, broken us, betrayed us, whatever it may have been. But it's almost as if we're talking, as we were talking about relationships before, that we have to form if we're going to reconcile, and forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing. If we are going to find a way to continue or go on in a relationship, we will find it's a different relationship than it was before.
• 9:49
  It cannot go back to the same way that it was because the trust was broken, the betrayal happened, the pain was caused. And so moving forward requires a releasing of what was, the relationship we thought we had, and perhaps a gentle receiving and a gentle holding of the relationship that is now offered. And it will be changed. It will be different. It will bear the scars of what was before, what has happened in the interim.
• 10:27
  And you see, for me, then this idea of ripening release, that's why it's important as one of the dimensions of a life well lived, of a life that's fully moving on, is recognizing that the brokenness cannot be erased. It's not about erasure. It's about reconstituting based on the new reality as it is. And that scar remains. Now, the challenge for us becomes also a danger.
• 11:08
  Sometimes we let the scar, the mistake, the thing that we did, if we were the perpetrator or the receiver of that which broke us, we let that scar become defining for us. It becomes for us shame. When we think the scar defines us and says who we are, then that becomes a shame to us that we could ever be defined by that worst thing, that bad thing that happened to us. And we imagine we became the scar itself. Responsibility is important.
• 11:47
  And that's why release is about also recognizing there is responsibility to be taken. Guilt for me is when we recognize a wrong has been done and that we did it when guilt resides in us. I did it. I'm guilty. I made a mistake.
• 12:07
  The best I can do is seek forgiveness and try to move forward in whatever way that looks. Not hold on to that past piece but learn from it and try not to make that mistake again. That kind of responsibility is born up from guilt. Shame redefines us. Guilt invites us to move forward with a kind of gentle spirit about ourselves and of forgiveness of the other of ourselves, of letting go, of releasing.
• 12:48
  So those are two pieces that are important, that scarring happens, repair is possible, requires work, and in the end, it does leave a scar. It does change us. And if we're to reenter into relationships, we will know that that scar in a way will be there. It will look different. We'll look different.
• 13:12
  We'll feel different. We'll engage differently because of the way we've experienced it. Even release and healing brings back a wholeness that was impacted by the thing that was done. And that's simply the way that it is. So distinguishing guilt from shame, recognizing the need to release in our lives.
• 13:37
  What I invite you to do now is a simple practice. What are the things in your life that you are holding on to? Is it a high point? Is it a low point? Is it a scar that you feel in some way defines who you are?
• 13:55
  Can you let go of that in order to move forward? Pause for a minute and sink into that reality. It is real. It is true. It has happened.
• 14:14
  Can you let it go? Can you gently hold the relationships of your life so you don't bind them to something that they were but not give them the freedom to be what they are. I would say this, ripening release is not learning to care less. It is learning to love without grasping, remember without becoming imprisoned by the memory, taking responsibility without becoming shame, and allowing life to move through us without demanding that every beautiful thing remain unchanged. We hold gently, not because nothing matters, but because everything is precious, living, and passing as it moves forward in time.
• 15:12
  And remember in the midst of everything else in all other times, you are infinitely precious. You matter. You are unconditionally loved. And you are a gift for who you already are. Perhaps ripening release is a dimension of your life from which you might benefit, a dimension that you might grow in, perhaps by practicing.
• 15:43
  Thanks so much for joining me today. If this has been helpful to you, I invite you to share this with others and encourage others as well to release those things that hold them. Until the next time, I wish you all the very best.