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I had a great Sunday, Mother’s Day. My cats even had a card waiting for me when I came home from an open house.

The day was beautiful. I made the best of working and enjoying it. I had made little gift bags for each of the MOM’s who came. I was treated at home , like a MOM (in a good way oh snarky MOMs out there!). That was Sunday.

Who knew Monday would bring the clouds inside me back to block my light? The old stuff coming back. WHY? The same “stuff” I’m LETTING GO in public (or at least in a private Facebook group) in “365 Days of Letting Go”.

Letting go is like training for a marathon. Letting go is a daily practice. Letting go is a muscle that isn’t built overnight. Letting go builds resilience. Letting go builds courage. Letting go builds confidence.

Letting go sets us free. Free from all the conditions, rules, judgements, fears that keep us tied down, buttoned up, silent and smiling on the outside while we’re hurting on the inside. This is how I lived in the first half of life.

Letting go sets us free to create, speak up, rest easy, thrive and LIVE a well-integrated life of our own design.

Letting go is a practice on MANY levels. In the second half of life we have an opportunity to forge a new path, destination unknown. Accepting and embracing the uncertainty of the destination is the most challenging part for me. I’m curious if you, the reader feel this way?

After all, weren’t we admonished to “LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP!”? hasn’t that been a guiding principle that runs on a loop in your head since you were old enough to understand the words? isn’t that what a “smart”, “wise”, “careful” and “mature” person does?

“LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP”. A simple phrase that’s about CERTAINTY. I hear it whispered automatically when I’m considering something new. Do you?

What’ I’m suggesting now, in the second half of life is “LEAP first”.

I think now, in this part of life, it’s like taking the training wheels off the bike the first time. You’ve been riding with training wheels for 60+ years. You don’t need them. When you take them off, you’ll be a little wobbly, MAYBE.

That is only your FEAR of needing them taking control for a second, stopping you from pedaling smoothly. Then, the bike tilts over to one side far enough and something else kicks in and takes over. That’s the you that knew how to do it all along. Now you understand you haven’t NEEDED them for a long time. You were just COMFORTABLE. You were SAFE.

So, WHAT or WHO died (a little)?

Back to Monday, what happened? 2 months in to daily LETTING GO and shouldn’t I be shedding old conditioning left and right, rising on a linear upward trajectory toward my goal of a well-integrated life of PEACE, EASE and ABUNDANCE?

Not so much. Oh, I’m shedding, but it is LAYERS. Underneath each layer is another layer. Underneath THAT somewhere is the NEW me. Like the new skin under a burn blister that’s peeled away, I’m tender, wobbly, susceptible to setbacks, not yet fully resilient. After a few days that new skin toughens up. It can face the elements easily. Same for me, but maybe not in days or even weeks when the layers of conditioning have been accumulating for 60+ years.

So, Monday, the new me was exposed to the forces of conditioning that I hadn’t hardened to yet. Specifically, comparison, fear, future-casting worst case scenarios.

The difference Monday was , I KNEW better intellectually. My MIND was NOT fearful, NOT worried, NOT even concerned with others doing BETTER than me. Really, I could not logically understand why my GUT was tied up in knots.

AHA MOMENT!! It was my GUT that wasn’t getting the message!!!This was a pivotal moment for me.

The unease in my GUT (which I now know is my EGO speaking) had always led me down a path of resistance. When I would think “I just have a gut feeling that things are going south” OR “I have a gut feeling this is wrong”, the signal or feeling in my gut would transmit to my MIND and I would pull back, resist, avoid, be extra cautious.

I always thought that feeling was my guide, my intuition. I now realize it is my ego, my FEARFUL ego keeping me from getting what I really wanted. Let me correct that, when I was young, it DID protect me from doing silly even stupid things, I’m sure. But I’m not young anymore. I’ve had a lot of life experience and learned lessons. Now, I have a pretty powerful and intuitive sense of right, wrong, and foolish. Now, when my gut goes off, it’s the old fear ego signaling STOP, now it’s protecting me from growth, from expansion and from THRIVING.

My mind had made progress and was moving on, I was excited about the uncertain and unlimited possibilities ahead.

On Tuesday morning, with the lingering negative gut signals still in my mind, still feeling LOW, I journaled “MORNING PAGES” (TY Julia Cameron). I drained the thoughts on to my journal pages that were coming from my gut. Getting them out on paper made the evidence even more clear. ANYTHING I feared which was now on the page would NOT take me down. So, I knew my GUT was sending a false signal to my mind.

I knew whatever happened I was going to accept. I knew that with every outcome I could imagine that was bad, there was a better possibility as well. My gut was only sending messages about bad outcomes. Regardless, I could ACCEPT any outcome.

That morning, I let that vestigial gut response DIE. It felt like a tumor being surgically excised. It was instantly gone.

You know how it feels when you worry about something for days and the moment you get GOOD news it’s GONE? You are immediately lighter, happier, relief instantly bathes your being?

In this case, I had been allowing ME to make ME miserable. I only had ME to blame. Who knew?

Outside my thoughts, nothing changed. Everything was the same as before, but I SEE things differently. Colors are brighter. Possibilities are unlimited. I am RESILIENT. I am PEACEFUL.

THE FEARS WERE OF THINGS NOT IN MY CONTROL. Didn’t I already post about Letting Go of Control? I never had it in the first place. DUH.

A little piece of the OLD me died that day. It had been blocking me. It had been pulling me down, fearful of losing it all.

Now, I feel PRESENT. I feel FREE. My physical, mental/emotional health, my finances, and my trust in spirit are FLOWING. I believe that old vestigial piece of me has died and a new version of me has been born.

This is Graceing Agefully™.