How do we let go of the unhealthy situations in life that weigh us down and keep us from living in the moment?

With thought-provoking quotes, anecdotal essays, and comforting prayers, The Wisdom of Letting Go guides you toward a path of personal development through forgiveness and acceptance of yourself and others. Spiritual leader Leo Booth offers healing advice and inspirational messages on matters of love, codependency, spirituality, separation, divorce, sexism, racism, violence, sickness, and death. 'Letting go,' says Leo Booth, 'does not mean we don't care. Letting go is discovering a path beyond the pain, beyond the conflict. Letting go is finding a way to live life.' Clearly, there is wisdom in letting go, and this book endeavors to show you how to do it.

Love
Sometimes you must love somebody enough to let them go.

I remember my mother saying this to me in the kitchen at my home in England. I was talking about a friend who for many years had been troubled with alcoholism, and how the fun that used to exist in our friendship had in recent years been transformed into anger, pain, embarrassment, and apathy. I had reached the point in every codependent's journey when I simply didn't care anymore. He was making me feel sick. As the church hymn so aptly says, 'We learn that love grows cold!'

I was telling my mother the friendship had given way to not caring. There was nothing more I could do for him; he had hurt me so much in recent years. I wanted out!

My mother said, 'I know how you feel. That is how I used to feel about you!' She went on to share what it was like living with me, as a mother, when I was drinking. Then she stated powerfully: 'This love requires distance.'

There is a point in 'tragic love' when we need to pull back, separate the dysfunctional behavior from the individual we love, and create a powerful moment of distance. In this sense we 'let go.' And we do this not because we do not love, but because we love.

Nobody can change another person, or get another person to behave in the way we want them to behave. When those relationships become really—I mean really—painful, we must pull away and let go. Sometimes nothing positive happens, and the person simply gets worse.

But there are times, creative moments, when the separateness produces a miracle: we have given them the space to change—the donkey is drinking the water!

Prayer
Great Spirit: You who have given us the freedom to walk away from the pain that keeps on giving, may we see Your creative power at work in the separateness.

©2009. Leo Booth. All rights reserved. Reprinted from The Wisdom of Letting Go. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442