When It’s Time to Go
By Theresa Shay
My dear friend - she’s 10 - cried yesterday when it was time for me to go home. She crossed her arms. Her chin lowered toward her chest. Her lower lip crept forward and she wouldn’t look at me. She told me, her voice breaking, that she wasn’t done being together. She had thought, she said, that we would hang out longer, maybe until it was time for her to go to bed.
I reached a hand out to her, and she sat down hard on my knees, facing away. I asked her to tell me more about how it felt. When her string of words quieted, I invited her to turn around and face me. I told her I wanted to look into her eyes. She turned. “I love you,” I said.
Sometimes it’s hard to go. Sometimes it’s hard to let go. Either way, to be aware of what’s happening under the surface reveals gold.
This story is about having to leave my friend’s house on a Sunday night. But it could just as well be about a relationship coming to an end. Or a plan, a vision, a dream disrupted and dissolving. This could be about having to go and take action to face a new physical challenge or to address a situation in the world. Some day, this going will rise when it’s time to let go of the body and go on to what’s next, maybe all the while wishing you could hang out longer here.
When such a situation presents itself and you open your drawer of possibilities, which option do you pull out? Maybe you try to fix the upset: “OK, I’ll stay and you won’t have to cry.” Perhaps you cry, yourself, “This is so hard. I can’t bear it,” and out you run. Maybe you apologize and explain your position: “I’m so sorry. It’s just that I have to go home and take care of my responsibilities.” Maybe exasperation rises: “Stop crying. This is just the way it is.”
And what about the response that doesn’t run toward, doesn’t move away, and doesn’t try to fix anything? In the midst of upset, what if you sit close to it, look clearly and with love, hold gently and with truth, acknowledging the pain, while knowing that this pain is only a fragment of what is available in the moment? What if you remain unattached?
Alignment in life requires accepting the call to go, which goes hand in hand with meeting the call to let go. We hold on easily, clinging to people, circumstances, thoughts. We, unknowingly, cling to tension in the body because it is familiar, it is accessible, and we haven’t yet examined it to find another way. Most of us also cling to our fears and our worries, our blaming and our anger, because this is familiar, it is accessible, and we haven’t yet examined ourselves to find another way.
Your quiet being and your calm presence when it is time to go requires your capacity to let others be as they are. It also allows others to be as they are. You sit close. You look reality in the eyes. Without running toward, running away, apologizing, explaining or resisting, you abide. Unattached, “I love you,” is spoken with the fullness of your presence behind it. The soul will soak this up, even if those arms are still crossed.
Theresa Shay is the founding director of TriYoga of Central Pennsylvania, where she teaches weekly yoga and meditation online and trains others to teach TriYoga®. Each week, she shares wisdom cultivated from decades of TriYoga study and practice.
Learn more about her here. Theresa can be reached at Theresa@PennsylvaniaYoga.com. Find her on Instagram @theresa_of_triyoga for more inspiration and light.