A few weeks ago, I learnt how hard it is to let go of something you’ve been longing for months. Because acutally, I would be in Tel Aviv right now, sitting in my favourite café. Or cruising along the beach promenade on my bike – with music playing in my ears. Maybe I’d even be on my way to Jerusalem… Either way, it’s a painful process for me to let go of these images. It’s like falling into a void. And there is nothing I can do to fill this vacuum.
Iran’s attack on Israel has left me first in shock and then in repression mode. Cancelling my trip, which is due to start on 1 May, is out of question for me. I find myself in resistance for a week. I stick to my plan like a spider monkey. Two opposing forces that couldn’t be more opposite: Heart and mind.
After an agonising week and several conversations with friends from Tel Aviv, I decide with a heavy heart to postpone my trip until July. And all of a sudden, as if by a miracle, new ideas and possibilities emerge: A friend from Basel is visiting his family in Tel Aviv in July with his wife and baby and wants to organise a shabbat dinner with his mother. A fellow student from my Hebrew course is planning to visit her friend in Israel in July and wants to meet me.
Deepak Chopra, one of “the” spiritual teachers of our time, says about letting go:
“Since impermanence is synonymous with pain for us, we cling desperately to things even though they are constantly changing. We are afraid to let go. We are afraid to really live, because learning to live means learning to let go. There is a tragic comedy in our clinging. Not only is it futile, but it brings us the pain we wanted to avoid at all costs.”
I now realise even more that letting go takes place in the heart. That’s what makes it so difficult. Because cognitively I knew that it was better for me to postpone. If we can harmonise this dissonance between heart and mind, then wonderful new things can emerge.
So new images are already arising in my head.
That’s gonna be my summer!