Happy December! It’s the start of a brand new month and I hope that you’re excited for what’s to come. If you love this time of the year I hope you enjoy the holiday spirit and if you don’t, well I hope you get through it unscathed. Around the 1st of the month I always take a look at the 2015 Self Love Planner and at the theme I chose for the month. December’s theme is release and it fits perfectly, like usual. I seem to have a way of knowing exactly what I need to hear. Which is why a few days ago I sat at my little bedside altar with my Goddess statues, my prayer beads, with candles lit and I asked for help.

I asked for help on letting go. In releasing.

No lie, November was a tough month and being the uber sensitive soul that I am I always find it incredibly difficult to let go of things. People, situations, thoughts – it’s all hard for me. I hold on way longer than I should. I think about things over and over again that I don’t need to think about, that serve no purpose. I suffer from shoulda-woulda-coulda. Sometimes I doubt my own bravery and courage in getting through those tough things, but somehow I always make it to the other side.

I have a whole host of ways to deal with the not-letting-gos. For thoughts sometimes distraction works, or journaling, or a long drawn out venting session with lots of profanity, or letting the thought come and letting it go. Sometimes I talk myself through it. “Oh, I’m thinking about x. I really don’t want to think about x, but it’s okay, I’m okay. It’s over. I learned from/dealt with/overcame that.” I’ve gotten pretty good at going through the mental list of things to do until something works or the thought runs its course. Gotta love anxiety and obsessive thoughts…. or not. Yeah, there’s really no love there.

As I said, it’s been a really big month. I’ve just released the new 2016 Self Love Planner which always, without fail gives me a bit of the blues. I’ve been taking care of a sick cat that’s required several vet visits and medicine-giving and syringe feeding every few hours. The holidays are always difficult in terms of time management and stress levels, and I’ve been letting go of a friendship that meant a lot to me but had turned toxic.

It’s hard to juggle all that at once. It’s hard not to hold onto the stress even when it feels so much better when you let it go. I have to frequently remind myself to breathe. To let go. To allow myself to see the big picture instead of narrowing my focus, like I do. In the moment, when you’re dealing with a lot, it feels very overwhelming. Taking a step back, seeing the big picture, knowing that when you take care of those things you’re dealing with -everything will be okay – that’s always an important step for me. The moments when I stop to breathe. The times that I let the breeze brush across my face with the reminder that everything will turn out all right. All important, but in spite of all of those little steps and reminders, it’s not always enough.

I still need more. I need to release.

That’s where the big medicine comes in. It’s more than a moment. It costs more than a few minutes, and it makes my soul feel so freaking good.

So yesterday I practiced big Letting Go medicine. I took a hot bath with salts and incense. I put a warm cloth over my eyes and rested in the embrace of heat and water. Breathing in. Breathing out. Letting go. Relaxed, I got out of the bath and went to my altar. I lit candles. I put on relaxing music, set six pink roses around my altar, and then I held my japa mala, the beads absently sliding through my fingers, as I talked with spirit. For an hour. I went over everything that was bothering me, everything that I was having trouble letting go of, everything that I had dealt with that was hard or unpleasant or that hurt my heart.

But mostly I allowed myself to get it all out of my system.

I cried and then the tears stopped eventually. I made plans and embraced ideas on better ways to handle what was going on inside of me and in my life. I started to smile. That feeling of oppressiveness lifted and was replaced with an attitude of I TOTALLY GOT THIS. I released the things that were bothering me by “giving it to God”. Those thoughts that I was finding hard to shake – but served no actual purpose – I let them go. Oh, there are still things that I need to do on my end, don’t get me wrong. I need to enforce my boundaries with people, I need to work on calming the fuck down, but lifting a little bit of that weight by consciously deciding to let it go was very healing. Release, it’s a lovely thing.

How do you release? How do you let go? What are you holding onto right now?