Giving Up What No Longer Works

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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Giving Up What No Longer Works

Burning your way to centre is the loneliest fire of all. You’ll know you have arrived when nothing else will burn.
Mark Nepo

I have been working on letting go for a long time. I choose words of the year like deciduous and surrender. I spend time cleaning out drawers and boxes and closets. I reach out to people with whom I have had disagreements. I make gratitude lists. I write. I run. I practice yoga. I do all of these things to burn my way to centre. A big part of burning my way to centre is determining what works and strengthening those thoughts and behaviors, and determining what does not work letting those things go. Here is what I have learned as I have stripped, cleared, shed, written, cried, talked, and breathed.

Letting Go Does Not Have to Be Lonely

Though we have to do the work ourselves, it does not have to be lonely work. Letting go alongside others makes us understand our own journey more deeply. Sharing the stories, that in many cases keep us grasping and clawing and resisting, eases the pain. Inviting others into letting go helps us understand that we are all on a journey of letting go, maybe not letting go of the same things, but letting go just the same. Letting go asks us to reach out. Letting go allows us to chose truth over secrets, and health over pathology. Letting go asks us to find strength and courage in one another. Peace is born of forgiveness. Grace is born of letting go. Letting go is born of community.

Letting Go Is a Process

I have heard that the Golden Gate Bridge is perpetually being painted. When they finish painting it, they immediately start to paint it again. Letting go is like that. We are always in a process of painting the bridge, of living day-to-day, of losing what does not work, of surrendering to what is, of listening to the truth as it speaks. Thinking of letting go as a journey, rather than a destination, can ease the anxiety and pain of change.

Be Prepared to Be Surprised

Letting go brings surprise. Surprise like strengthened connections with others. Surprise like a light shining through a crack in a wall. Surprise like a weight being lifted. Surprise like a belly laugh. Letting go is a choice. A choice we make every minute of every day. As a choice, the outcome can be unclear. There is risk involved in letting go. I believe the risk outweighs the reward, and here’s why. Use a flower as an example. A flower’s bloom is a surprise. A beautiful surprise that happens exactly on time, exactly how it is meant to happen. The flower simply blooms. Life can be that easy. Giving up what no longer works allows us to bloom.