I’m one of THOSE people.  I faithfully check the daily horoscopes,  not so much because I believe an astrologer can predict my future but because I find that if I read between the lines I often find bits of wisdom and advice that I can immediately work into my life.  For example, on Friday I read that the full moon would be in my sign, Leo and according to the experts, this presents the perfect opportunity to purge –  to get rid of those things that I no longer need.  Luckily I was already in the process of collecting old toys, shoes and handbags to give away to Goodwill, so the new moon just put a fire under my tail to actually load the stuff in the truck and drive it over.  That was the easy part.   The hard part was going through my mental and emotional closets in search of those ideas, feelings and beliefs that no longer fit the life I hope to create for myself.  This kind of  “internal cleansing”  has been part of my wellness regimen for a while and I’m grateful that I can say that for the most part  I’ve managed downgrade  from a 15 piece  set of Luis Vuiton baggage (my insecurities traveled in style, thank you very much) to  a small, but equally fabulous clutch with just what I need to get by.  The thing is, recently I’ve noticed  my clutch has been bursting at the seams.  It appears I’ve been carrying around the remnants of a failed friendship and despite the hours of intensive “therapy” with my BFF’s I’m still holding on in hopes that eventually I’d be able to figure it out what went wrong.   This combined with the fear that if I let it go, I’d have to admit that my little fairy tale moment was just that.   (By the way, I write more about this crazy little relationship in my book – Finding Lovely, which will be released later this year)  Anyhoo,  I realized that because I’d been carrying around all this extra baggage,  I had little room for anything else.  It was time to make a decision.   Either let it go to make room for something useful or upsize my bag to something bigger, and you know how that goes – the bigger the bag the more shit you’ll find to fill it.  so I decided to let it go.

Here’s what I did.

I wrote a letter.  In it I described in detail how I  felt.  I expressed how disappointed and angry I was with the way things turned out, I apologized for my role in the breakdown of the relationship and I released us both from any obligation to fix it.  I wished my former friend the best and closed it out with a prayer for both of us.  When I was done I folded the letter, grabbed an ashtray and a lighter and headed out back to the deck.  I sat there will the letter for a few minutes before I tore it up.  Next, I  put the pieces in the ashtray and burned it.   When it finished burning, I released the ashes to the wind and with that, I felt the stress, sadness, anger and frustration I’d been carrying for months disappear.

Almost immediately I began to notice a change, all of the sudden my present relationships started to improve while new and interesting people began finding their way into my life.  I had literally made room for something better (fitting) to fill the space.

O.K.  so  I realize my actions may seem a little “dramatic” for some (I am a Leo after all), and that’s fine, choose your own ritual.   It doesn’t really  matter how you choose to let go, it only matters that you make the choice to let go.

F.A.B. Girls know:  In order to make room for what you need you must let go of the things that you don’t