Letting Go

​Letting Go
They sing that breaking up is hard to do.  We watched a show the other day where a team had to work out who was telling the truth.  The person who was telling the truth was someone who enlisted the help of another to write a letter of break up.  What made it worse was the object was excited to get a letter and had friends gather around as they read it.
Reminds me that letting go is one of the hardest things I find to do. I have a tendency to want to hold onto things I should leave behind.
One of the hardest things I find is to let go of stuff that has to do with another.  I so often think I know best.  And sometimes I may.  Yet my efforts are wasted.  I just need to let go. 
I did find that someone I knew became the nicest I had ever known them when I felt I was no longer being judged.  I was free to be myself.  The amazing thing was I wanted to be my best self.
Maybe being me warts and all is the way it is.  But my experience is that when I try to change someone they often resent my efforts and I am further estranged.  But when I let go they are free to be themselves.  I may not like it, but hands off is the only way I know that works.
Sometimes it is years before I see the change I am waiting for, but I feel it does not matter so much when it happens, but that it does happen.  I can be doing my darndest to influence someone for good, and they may change while I am at it, but often that is despite my actions rather than because of them.
There is no doubt I want the best for a person.  Sometimes I genuinely know what is best, but the other person does not see it.  I can choose to try to talk a person around, but until that is what they want, I am wasting my time.
I find this is really hard to grasp.  There is a feeling that I must be doing something.  But that something is to love unconditionally.  I can tell if that is the sort of love I am exercising by my words.  As long as I am overtly trying to change someone, they are less likely to want to.
They reckon the same sun that melts the snow hardens the clay.  Often my words harden.  It is acts of love that soften. 
I do believe one of the reasons so much interpersonal conflict is unresolved is because one is seeking to change another by their words.  The words may be right, but there is a time and place.
If I am invited to say something it is often evidence of a softening.  When I am not invited but simply put forth my thinking, there is often a hardening.  The effect is the opposite of what I want, and the last situation is worse than the first.
But to me letting go is one sign that I recognise I am responsible for me first.  I may want what is best for another, but experience has shown me I am powerless to change them.  The best I can do is love and let go.  Change is a choice.  I make that choice on my own, and so do others.  As long as someone knows I love them then sometimes letting go is the greatest evidence.