To Let Go
This is how we roll. This is our car packed for six people and one dog for a 10-day road trip. This is it. This is everything we will take take with us.
Truth be told, we haven’t always been this way.
Let me explain.
Seven years ago we were packed and ready to go to the beach for our annual vacation. We had suitcases and duffle bags, swimsuits and extra swimsuits, snacks for the road and snacks for when we arrived. We had beach toys and beach chairs, towels and umbrellas. We had all that we needed and then some—you know, all of the other things for “just in case.” It had taken me all week to prepare for this trip. As we loaded everything into our full-size SUV, including two parents and five kids, we all took a deep breath as we closed the doors and hoped we all fit.
And then 20 minutes into our trip, our car broke down on the side of the highway and was in need of a major repair. I was upset about the car but I was mostly sad that we were going to have to cancel our beach vacation. But Brandon had another idea.
He had everything unloaded from our ginormous SUV and placed right inside our front door. He was very serious and told us to repack so that we would all fit in our much smaller mid-size SUV. He told us to grab a backpack, duffle bag, or pillow case, it didn’t matter to him, and whatever fits can come with us and everything else will be left behind. He said we had 20 minutes.
Truth be told, I panicked and thought he was crazy—like really crazy. The other car was his commuter car. It was much smaller and we never used it for the entire family. He wanted us to repack in 20 minutes what took me a week to do. He expected us to leave home with only what we need.
And we did it. Suitcases turned into duffle bags, extra swimsuits and pairs of clothes got left behind, and all of the extra snacks were left and bought again once we arrived at the beach. We let go of all the extras and took only what we needed. And we ended up having one of our most memorable vacations.
The real truth was when we arrived back home at the end of the week. There to greet us as we walked into the door was everything that was left behind that we never even missed. Everything I would have lugged along with us that we simply did not need. Everything that would have kept us from even taking the vacation because I thought we had to have it.
The truth was there staring us in the face and it really caused us to question: What do we actually need and what do we need to let go?
This truth carried over to so many other parts of our lives.
As we started to think about what we need and what we need to let go, we started to see changes in our daily lives. From that trip on, we started to pack lightly, taking only what we need. We’ve traveled from Texas to Canada and lots of places in between with nothing more than what each person can fit into their duffle bag or backpack (no one has yet to pack in a pillowcase).
This mindset has allowed us to take stock of everything we own and has allowed us to question why. We found the freedom to downsize our cars, downsize our things, and even to downsize our home.
By being very clear on what we actually need, we have even downsized our jobs thus downsizing our income. We wanted more time to do what we love, to collect memories not things, and we learned that doesn’t take as much money. We are able to live on less because we have less.
Most people seem to want more time, more freedom, and a life more closely aligned to their dreams, values, purpose, and passion. But we find ourselves carrying around with us old hurts, old ideas, old ways, and old stories.
What do we need?
What do we need to let go?
The truth is, we can ask ourselves these two questions about any area of our lives. We can allow these questions to lead us to what is really important and what matters most. We can follow our hearts to the answers that each of us have deep down inside. We can have less to have more, and honestly, that is our hope.
