I saw an anonymous meme on Facebook that said, “The trees are about to show you just how beautiful letting go can be.”

This really made me pause as I turned the calendar to start the crisp, colourful month of October.  It must be so freeing for the trees to let everything fall away and realize that they can face the world with nothing to hide behind.  Because their roots are strong enough to withstand anything the world brings.

The same thing can be said about all of us.  Sometimes we are scared to let our authentic selves become uncovered.  We think we need the status and the look and the friends and the degrees and the lifestyle.  But once all that is stripped away and the person we truly are is unveiled for the world to see, we learn one thing.  The people who like us will like us.  And the people who don’t, won’t.  But we have gained strength in knowing that, like the trees, we have let all the excess go and are still standing strong.  Seasons will change and we will bloom again.  Without pretending.

As German novelist and poet Hermann Hesse once said, “Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.”

As the trees show us the beauty in letting go of their leaves, let us show the world our own beauty by letting go of all that holds us back from becoming who we truly are.