595 Warrior Wellness

☕ Coffee with Grim

Life has a funny way of teaching us lessons… if we’re paying attention.

I was sitting on the shore of a local lake recently, watching people water ski.

Every so often, someone would lose their balance and go down. Most of them would let go of the handle, wait for the boat to circle back, get themselves set, and try again.

Watching them took me back to when I was learning to water ski.

The person teaching me gave me one simple piece of advice:

“When you fall, let go of the handle.”

Pretty straightforward.

Apparently, I needed to learn it the hard way.

I’d fall, forget to let go, and suddenly I wasn’t water skiing anymore. I was being dragged across the lake, swallowing water and getting beat up while stubbornly hanging onto a handle that wasn’t taking me anywhere I wanted to go.

All I had to do was let go.

There’s a Zen proverb I’ve come to appreciate:

“Let go or be dragged.”

Simple. And painfully accurate.

We do the same thing in life.

We hold onto a past we can’t change. A conversation we keep replaying. A grievance we refuse to put down. An outcome we didn’t want. Someone else’s choices. Maybe even an old version of ourselves that doesn’t exist anymore.

And we convince ourselves that holding on somehow gives us control.

It doesn’t.

Sometimes it just drags us.

Letting go doesn’t mean what happened didn’t matter. It doesn’t mean you’re giving up, forgetting, forgiving before you’re ready, or pretending something didn’t hurt.

Sometimes letting go simply means deciding you’re done allowing it to pull you behind the boat.

I eventually learned to release that waterski handle when I fell.

Some of life’s other handles have taken me a little longer.

Maybe you know the feeling.

So, before I finish this cup of coffee, let me leave you with one question…

What are you still holding onto that’s no longer carrying you forward, only dragging you behind?

Maybe it’s time to let go of the handle.

Until next time… keep paying attention.

— Grim