Catch and Release

I hear this often with the women I’m in relationship with and I absolutely recognize this within myself. One’s human nature to catch onto a thought and allow it to spin us out into every direction.

Where this plays in the most with the loss of a child are in the catching of thoughts that make one believe there might have been something that could have been done to change the outcome. Maybe there could have been, yet it does not alter the reality of what is, thus it taps into our energy reserves that are needed for where our feet are now.

This is a universal thought and belief that is carried until it isn’t. It resembles a backpack full of rocks, each rock a moment that might have been missed, something said, not said, done, not done creeping into our thoughts. Leaving us wondering if this could have been the turning point to have changed a most tragic and painful outcome?

My family adores fly fishing and I watched my husband teach both our children how to catch a fish and then release it. Some came more easily off the hook while others I often wondered if their fate was sealed and a release was futile? Yet, each time as I watched and wasn’t certain, it would catch its breath and swim back to freedom.

Maybe that’s what my thoughts resemble? A fish that I’ve caught, some released with ease and others taking as long as needed to finally be sent on their way. I’ve even heard a wise woman, Tosha Silver, share she actually says, “No/Stop,” to a thought that absolutely needs to go. She says that by uttering a hard, no, it can jolt her out of a trance of illusion. A tool to aid her in the realization that she has spent more than enough time within the thought and it’s time to redirect it. This is not bypassing nor is not feeling fully whatever it might be. However it is growing an inner timer which sounds off and alerts one when enough is enough.

Also, being told by a kind soul in my early loss when I was torturing myself with all the would of, could of and should of scenarios utter, “You were never and are just not that powerful.” Somehow I was believing that I was and could change the finality of his outcome.

This by no means minimizes those life changing, aha moments, interventions, moment of clarity that may turn everything inside out, upside down and become a dramatic course correction.

I am relying on releasing when I’m in the catching mode. Recognizing that not all thoughts are asking to be caught and stored away like smelly fish. Many are simply asking for acknowledgment and a very quick release.