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July 2005
An Excerpt from "Healing Circles: A Manual for Integrating Spirituality into the Work Place" by Marjie Sokoll, BSW, M.Ed., SeRaF Faculty Member /National Center for Jewish Healing.
Letting Go
LETTING GO (Anonymous)
To Let Go is not to stop caring,
It’s recognizing I can’t do it for someone else.
To Let Go is not to cut myself off,
It’s realizing I can’t control another.
To Let Go is not to enable,
But to allow learning from natural consequences.
To Let Go is not to fight powerlessness,
But to accept that the outcome is not always in my hands.
To Let Go is not to try to change or blame others,
It’s to make the most of myself.
To Let Go is not to care for, it’s to care about.
To Let Go is not to fix, it’s to be supportive.
To Let Go is not to judge,
It’s to allow another to be a human being.
To Let Go is not to try to arrange outcomes,
But to allow others to affect their own destinies.
To Let Go is not to be protective,
It’s to permit another to face their own reality.
To Let Go is not to regulate anyone,
But to strive to become what I dream I can be.
To Let Go is not to fear less, it’s to love more.
This beautiful poem was given to me by one of my colleagues who has been a regular participant in our Healing Circles. For more than six years, I have had the privilege of facilitating a monthly Healing Circle for the staff of Jewish Family & Children’s Service of Greater Boston. There were no roadmaps for the creation of these Healing Circles - just a firm belief that if I was able to "let go" and trust in the process, if there was an interest and desire among my colleagues, then the Healing Circles would happen.
As a result of the original idea to create a Healing Circle, many circles of caring have formed at Jewish Family & Children’s Service. I have been the recipient of many such poems, readings and teachings, over the years, as have so many of my colleagues. It has become commonplace to share inspirational written words with one another, as well as spoken words of support and encouragement. Just as a pebble is thrown into a body of water and creates ripples farther than the eye can see, so, too, the Healing Circle branched off in small ways within the agency, within the community, and beyond.
The selection above is taken from the Introduction of Marjie Sokoll’s manual. We look forward to sharing with you the rest of this manual as well as additional writings created by the other SeRaF faculty members on our website in the near future.
These "Spirituality Notes" are excerpts from our monthly E-newsletter. Articles are © JBFCS Rita J. Kaplan Jewish Connections Programs and may be reprinted free of charge as long as this credit line is included.
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