HUG, KISS, LET GO

A friend was once struggling with the fact that her teenage kids were leaving home. She said that she finally realized what she must do: "I get to hug them and kiss them and let them go. That is all." 

Over the years, I've used that on my resentments, my defects, my judgments, whatever. Instead of nurturing them through guilt, hate and shame (that ugly little voice in my ear saying, "You should be able to forget about this, turn this over, let this go."), I consciously and out loud say, "I hug you, I kiss you, I let you go." 

I wonder why it still amazes me that giving over gets...peace, love and inner joy. That may well be the only way of knowing true peace, love and inner joy.

We can pray for them till our face falls off, until we give them, we're just spitting out words. To consciously give...what? Reprieve? Father forgive me, but forgiveness still sounds sanctimonious to me, but that's it of course. What it is is to forget that which hurt us, peeved us in the first place. Try doing that on your own with no help from a higher power.

It's like a little kid going to her mom to kiss her boo-boo, make the hurt go away; indeed, the hurt goes away. And the kid has just kissed the thing himself to save a trip inside to his mom...and the hurt went nowhere. Not till Mom kissed it, was it made it better. 

We hug it, we kiss it, we let it go. In short, we give it to God…and our hurt goes away.

Thank you.