My friend Lainie in Australia is fond of the saying, “Inhale the good shit, exhale the bullshit.” It's not about smoking huge blunts filled with medical-grade marijuana, but letting go of stupid, petty toxic shit and as we breathe, bringing in only the good things we want in our lives.
As a reiki master, I’ve learned a lot about the importance of letting go of things and people that don’t serve our best interests, so that we bring into our lives what we do want. That doesn’t mean I’m good at it. Perhaps other reiki masters sit around in lotus position on mountaintops living the Zen lifestyle, but I work and have four kids, two of whom are in college so for the time being, I still need to listen to Australian-accent guided meditations on YouTube to reach higher than zero chill status on the born-and-bred type A over here.
I agree we waste too much time and energy worrying about things we can’t control, about people who don’t deserve our attention. Toxic people and energy vampires are all around us—fake friends better known as frenemies, shit even some of our own family members will suck every living bit of joy out of life if we let them; the thing to do is to just not let them. But how?
I love the idea of burning shit down. Not like buildings, and not to go full woo-woo on you here, but even if you’re not much into universal healing stuff, everyone can take part in this tiny cleansing activity. This is generally a full moon activity, and if you look up “full moon guided meditation” again on YouTube you can find some applicable “letting go” material, but here’s the concept. Write down what you want to get rid of in your life. Not like hit man get rid of, but it’s okay to write down people whose energy you want out of your personal space. For the love of God or the moon goddess or whoever, don’t burn your house down doing this, but if you rip up the list of things/people you want out of your life or at least out of your face, and then say put the pieces at the bottom of a glass jar and throw a match in or use your fireplace/fire pit/other safe place-not-near-curtains, this visualization can be pretty powerful. The flames, the ashes! Bye bye bye.
I did this at the full moon at end of the year, but any moon (or day) will work, So then, new moon, new day, adios to the negative (exhale) then to take it further if you make a list of things you do want in your life and hang that up somewhere or put it in an intentions box and check it at the end of the year, you can mentally dedicate energy toward making the vision you see for yourself happen (inhale).
We have only so much real estate in our lives: in time, in space, in energy, to dedicate to doing things. Sometimes it takes a bad event happening to us to make us reevaluate. A bad car accident recently made me think a lot about my world. I could’ve lost my life that day, and since I didn’t and I’m still around, what choices am I going to make with whatever’s left of it? Hence the fire. Have to say, I liked seeing those ashes, and really like the fresh air.