Let Go and Come Home
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(Lose the Net by Rasmus Faber Courtesy of Epidemic Music)
How amazing it is that good questions lead us so naturally to good answers, and that beautiful questions lead to even better answers! When we open ourselves to the things we don’t know, we’ve opened the doors to discovery and wonder and greater understanding.
I’m Scott Lennox and you’re listening to The Beautiful Question, a consideration of things that matter every day.
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We brace ourselves and push and strain to get where we want to go, but what if we have it all wrong. What if letting go is the key to freedom and the ease we desire? What if life—all of it—can become child’s play again?
Join me this week as we consider holding on and the liberating and life-nourishing power of letting go. Stay with me.
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As I experience the transformation that’s happening in my life right now, I stand in wonder and no small measure of joy. Because of all it brings, I’m sure I’ll be speaking and writing more and more about the startling power of truly letting go!
New surprises are coming every day and I think of the joy that was felt by the boy in Robert Frost’s poem Birches. As he swung out on the upper branches of the trees and flung himself outward, his feet were gleefully kicking in the air until he touched ground again.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I admit that I’m saying this after decades of hanging on so tightly to nearly everything that I all but lost myself in the process. But then something happened to change that in surprising ways.
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A few weeks ago, I was looking at a photograph someone took of me in full combat gear in Vietnam, and a shudder ran though me. What I saw was so glaringly obvious that I went to my bedroom and took a long look at myself in the mirror. Trembling, I realized that there was no difference in the way I’ve been dressing for years and the way I dressed in combat. For years, I’ve dressed in jeans and western vest and tall cowboy boots with my jeans tucked into them and a scarf cinched around my neck. It’s really no different than the protective gear I wore when I went out on combat missions all those decades ago.
I realized that I’ve been constantly walking through the world as though I was heading into something deadly and dangerous—braced and ready to defend myself and those around me.
No wonder I found life to be so challenging. No wonder I felt such physical and mental fatigue. No wonder I wasn’t facing each day with a smile on my face. No wonder I rarely made time to let go and be who I really am. Some long-outworn idea I held in the back of my awareness wouldn’t allow those things to happen.
No more! Those days are gone and I bid good riddance to all of them. I mean it.
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Standing there in front of the mirror that day, I decided to make a sweeping change with a single stroke. Other than allowing myself to let go inside and outside, I wasn’t sure how I would do it, but I was crystal clear about some of the things I would no longer be doing.
More clear than that was the my desire to get back in touch with my most liberated self—the original Scott Lennox before I started adapting to the ways of the world. Standing there that afternoon, I chose to get fully back touch with the beautiful and unfettered self I’ve always been—the spontaneity and freedom that still exists beneath all the outer trappings and personal defenses and the fear-based ideas about myself I’ve carried for as long as I can remember.
In a word, I chose to let go and come home to myself.
As confirmation that I am heading in the right direction, I had a marvelous conversation earlier this week with someone who knew my former professor of New Testament Greek at TCU, the late Dr. George Fowler. As one of his students in the seventies, he invited me to his house to see one of the dulcimers he built in his woodshop. When he learned that I was also making them, he asked me for my thoughts about the one he made.
When I arrived at his house the next day, he was on an extended phone call and I sat in the floor with his five-year old grandson, Warren. For a quarter of an hour, we played with little toy cars and following imaginary roads around the legs of the coffee table until Dr. Fowler’s call ended.
When I went back a year later to see another instrument he made, his grandson was there again. Dr. Fowler asked, “Warren, do you remember Mr. Lennox?” His answer stunned me, though it would be decades before I could really accept what he said. “Yes,” Warren said, as though he was stating the obvious. “This is the man with the little boy inside him.” Do I have to tell that I had tears in my eyes? A six-year old had seen through my outer self and into my real self.
Warren’s statement rang in my ears as I stood looking at my braced self in the mirror. For the first time, I saw what he saw. I saw the openly curious and beautiful and fully liberated little boy I’ve always been. I saw freedom and joy and boundless possibilities. And all of that with not a trace of judgment.
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I won’t waste time trying to explain why, but since that day of really letting go, everything has become easier. I’m connecting with my counseling clients in more meaningful ways. Writing and painting have become child’s play. I feel like I’m floating through the world instead of trudging through it. My sleep has deepened. I’m less critical of myself and other people. And I feel calm and peaceful and generally easy as I go through my days.
After all the years I spent pushing to get where I wanted to go, it was the opposite—it was letting go—that allowed the doors to open. But don’t take my word for it. Play with the idea on your own and watch what happens. You have nothing to lose and everything—everything—to gain.
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This week’s Beautiful Questions are about the self-bestowed gift of letting go. I hope you find them useful, and I hope they inspire you to liberate yourself.
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Question One: In what ways have you been needlessly holding on in your life?
Question Two: What thoughts or ideas have caused you to keep doing that?
Question Three: What single thought or action would help you let go—even if it’s just a little bit—right now?
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Write and tell me where your considerations take you. I’m looking forward to hearing about the spontaneous and lively little kid in you.
As I say each week,
My Light with Your Light!
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I’m happy we can engage this way as we consider things that matter and what to do about them. If nothing else, I hope you feel inspired to look more deeply at ways of caring for yourself.
You can be further inspired by visiting my friends at Kosmos Journal. That’s K O S M O S Journal. Their mission is to inform, inspire, and engage global transformation in harmony with all life. You can easily find them online at Kosmos Journal dot O R G.
And at thebeautifulquestion.com, you can read the illustrated transcript of each podcast as you listen. We’ve also included an archive of all previous podcasts, including guided relaxation audios that can help you practice letting go on a daily basis.
If you find these podcasts useful, I encourage you to share them and tell others about them. That’s a great way of helping me get a voice of calm and collaboration and balance and encouragement out into the world. It’s a great way of spreading peace.
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I’m Scott Lennox, and this has been The Beautiful Question.
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The Beautiful Question is a One Light production, written, produced, and engineered by Scott Lennox at HeartRock Studios in Fort Worth, Texas, as a way of paying forward to life, being fully present, becoming better engaged with things that truly matter in a complex world, and committing to a healthier future for all of us.