Letting Go - Carrier Shells
by Laura Roman, M.A., LCPC
To be authentic, we must let go. It is a conscious choice, to set aside things which cover our true self, and simply be present with ourselves before God and others.
I’m reminded of a simple shell I’d collect growing up, called a carrier shell whose Greek, scientific name means “bearing foreigners”. This snail cements other shells or pebbles onto its own shell and carries them around, creating a unique facade and back-scape.
Yet its own shell is hidden behind the diamonds, shells, or shards it shows. Underneath the glitz and glamour of the carrier shell’s exterior, is a beautiful, spiraled shell. As a child, I was fascinated with these shells which had the least additions on them. I’d sit in tide pools by the ocean, tracing the simple flow of the sharp ribbed edges, the graceful curves of the vulnerable, real shell underneath with my fingertips.
Similar to carrier shells, people carry things with them hoping they identify us and hide us from life’s storms of painful words, judgments, and circumstances. We carry coping and survival skills which “protect” us from pain. These include relationships and interactions, skills and abilities, activities and donations, finances and jobs, and countless other “shell accessories.” We protect ourselves with them, hoping to live life fully, finding love, acceptance, and safety if we have enough of the right things “on” us. Only we often find ourselves experiencing more pain, anxiety, and depression as a result of these survival skills.
Letting go of these accessories allows for authenticity. As we choose to let go, we begin to accept and see ourselves as God created us to be, discovering our true identity underneath our life’s accessories. Authenticity invites us to be honest with both the pain and joy, tears and smiles we find inside.
Letting go involves being present all parts of ourselves, including the parts we are ashamed or scared of. Brené Brown, a shame and resilience researcher, discusses how wholehearted living comes when we begin to counteract negative shame messages by sharing them with others. Simply by sharing our painful stories with emotionally safe people, our pain and shame decreases, and we are being true to ourselves.
Letting go entails leaning into and tracing the emotional curves and sharp edges inside, connecting rather than avoiding, these painful parts. Allowing negative emotions to be present is a part of letting go. During a pain-filled season, a dear friend of mine, Carol Hiestand, wrote about her experience of letting go as being “the culmination of a lot of little decisions, starting with the willingness to run into the darkness, rather [than] running away from it, chasing it rather than searching desperately for light. It is sitting with the pain, crying the tears. Experiencing the deep sorrow, instead of pushing it down. It is facing the death of dreams and life as I had planned it.”
We can release our expectations for the outcome, trusting that our Creator to continue to make a masterpiece, and walk each moment with us. In the acts of accepting and expressing what is actually happening inside of us, we become authentic and real. We will realize we have let go in hindsight, when we look at back and don’t find accessories on our carrier shells.
References:
Brown, C. Brené. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. Center City, Minn: Hazelden, 2010.
