{"id":79,"date":"2012-04-29T21:31:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-29T21:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=79"},"modified":"2015-03-25T15:12:40","modified_gmt":"2015-03-25T15:12:40","slug":"letting-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=79","title":{"rendered":"Letting Go"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When do you know it&#8217;s time to let go?&nbsp; I watched as my second oldest daughter cleaned out her school binder.&nbsp; She sorted her papers into two piles.&nbsp; One to keep and one to throw away.&nbsp; I asked her if she liked cleaning out her binder.&nbsp; She said, &#8220;yes because&nbsp;I find stuff that I have been carrying around that I don&#8217;t need and I can get rid of it.&#8221;&nbsp;She is a smart girl.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>As I continue to unpack my dream, I&#8217;m finding things that don&#8217;t work for me any more.&nbsp; Thoughts, attitudes, and situations that at one time seemed to make sense or be beneficial, no longer work.&nbsp; In fact, they cause trouble.&nbsp; I&nbsp;should let them go.&nbsp; But I find myself struggling.&nbsp; Do I really need to let them go?&nbsp;&nbsp;Should I figure out a way to make them work?&nbsp; After all, I have carried some of them around for years.&nbsp; It would be a shame to throw them out now&#8230;.. My daughter, on the other hand,&nbsp;seemed to have no trouble throwing out the things she didn&#8217;t need.&nbsp; There was no struggle, no deep contemplation, no tears.&nbsp; She simply threw them away and went on with her day.&nbsp; The difference?&nbsp; No emotional attachment.&nbsp; Who she is and her value as a person are not wrapped up in her various notes and test scores found in her binder.&nbsp; I, however, have become emotionally attached to my stuff.&nbsp; I have&nbsp;allowed&nbsp;my stuff&nbsp;to become a part of me.&nbsp; I have&nbsp;allowed it to become a permanent resident.&nbsp; But,&nbsp;now I know I have a choice.<\/p>\n<p>I can choose what I will allow in my life.&nbsp; I can choose to let go of those things that don&#8217;t work.&nbsp; This has led to some tough decisions.&nbsp; I know that not everyone will be happy with some of the choices I make.&nbsp; They may question my motives.&nbsp; They may question my reasoning. &nbsp;They may even question my faith.&nbsp; But I will not let that stop me.&nbsp; It&#8217;s time to let go&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When do you know it&#8217;s time to let go?&nbsp; I watched as my second oldest daughter cleaned out her school binder.&nbsp; She sorted her papers into two piles.&nbsp; One to keep and one to throw away.&nbsp; I asked her if &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=79\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}