I don’t have to believe in the same things that my loved ones believe in, in order to love them.
~ Karen Davis
One of the most valuable gifts we can receive from this program is learning how to let go of other people. Giving up our struggle to control how friends and family members think and behave and feel will bless us with an exhilarating freedom.
Most of us never realized we could let others live their own lives. We sincerely thought we needed to help others see life as we saw it. Certainty that we were right in all matters was part of our disease. Letting others be themselves meant we weren’t in control.
We’ve come to understand that, in fact, we aren’t in control and never were. But now we are glad for that understanding. Now we are free to spend our time on creative pursuits that please us rather than spinning our wheels trying to make people follow us. We each have a path to follow, and we are growing in our gratitude for that realization.
I may want my loved ones to think like me, but I will let them make their own choices today. Really loving them means really letting them go.
© 1994 by Hazelden Foundation
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