I like to lift weights. When things I loved to do got tougher, I always had weights to fall back on, so to speak. I say that because once I did fall on one of my dumbbells, and found out why they call them that. A good session of kettlebells or dumbbells can make endorphins flow just like any other exercise. Not only that, muscles can’t grow unless the fibers are damaged. Lifting weights actually damages the fibers of the skeletal muscle. Living does the same thing: it damages you so you can grow.

When you lift a weight to work a muscle-perhaps your bicep-you are lifting against gravity to build and tone the muscle. Eventually, with enough repetitions  and increase in weight, we will grow and maintain a muscle. When we think of weight-lifting and growing muscles, we usually think of the action required to lift the weight in the palm as we work the bicep, not the opposite and equal action required to lower the weight.

In point of fact, there is an opposing muscle force which is worked when you lower the weight. In order to contract, there has to be a release, and the release is part of the process of building the bicep. Apply this principle to life and voila!, we have a principle to chew over!

Any issue in life that we have been wrestling with requires  from us a certain amount of energy, or contraction of the spirit. We try to deal with these situations with the experience we have acquired through the years, and we try to assert some control over it. In actuality, we have very little control over anything. Even things you think you have control over, such as finding a mate, is left to chance. Out of all the millions of people in the world, each living in their own space and going their own way every day, subject to the vagaries of fate in their lives, and whose chemical makeup may or may not click with yours, what are the chances you will find someone to love, and who loves you? It’s mind boggling!

Muscle growth is probably one of the few things over which we do have some control. There is control over the release of the muscle contraction; you don’t just let your arm fall to your side after you lift the weight, right? You lower it with control, in order to be able to lift it again for the next repetition. There is power in that action; you have to exert a power to lower the weight. The same is true when you let go of a situation over which you have no control; you detach, you lower your arm, and you gently release the muscles that have been contracting. The muscle is relaxed, and is free to perform other actions which may require your attention.

I know a little something about living with an alcoholic, and it was through that experience that I learned about detachment. Detachment, which is another word for release, or relaxing a psychic muscle, takes power and control. It is not an easy feat to accomplish, and requires constant vigilance to maintain it’s health.