“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”
Lewis B. Smedes
Recently, I read this quote in a yoga class. The focus of our practice that day was letting go. Letting go ofthe past, of expectations, of competition, of everything that doesn’t serve us in this very moment. There is such a powerful lesson here, and it’s one of the most difficult lessons to grasp. Maybe we can learn from one of our greatest teachers, our own body.
Each time we take in a breath, we are essentially and fundamentally, getting one more moment of life. This breath comes in. It makes a subtle, but powerful little journey through the nostrils, down the throat and into the lungs. In this one seemingly insignificant breath, there is oxygen, the only thing we really need to remain alive in this moment. In a process that is nothing less than miraculous, the body does what it needs with this new oxygen. Delivers it to every cell within us. And then, as we exhale, we let go of everything we no longer need. That which has served us now leaves us to make room for a new breath, a new opportunity, a new life.
Perhaps in the next breath we take, we can realize that everything we need is here right now. Everything that has come before has been a part of helping us grow into who we are today. And maybe there are things that need to be released. They have done their work. So we exhale.
Oh the freedom of letting that prisoner go.
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