I took Ellie up into the forest yesterday for a walk. To the west, the late afternoon sun glistened on the waters beneath the Lions Gate Bridge. Huge freighters sat anchored in the harbour and tiny sailboats scuttled across the water.

This is “Ellie’s Woods”. When I lived here in Vancouver for the year and a half, Ellie and I would traipse up to the woods every day for a walk. It was in these woods I whispered my sorrows and fears to the trees. High up in the center of the woods, a cliff borders an old, unused quarry. There I sat one afternoon with a girlfriend as we wrote and painted on four dozen eggs all the sadness and anger we both contained within us. And then, when we were done colouring and expressing ourselves on the eggs, we hurled the eggs off the cliff above the quarry, screaming and yelling at the top of our lungs. It was divine and freeing. She too was healing from a relationship gone really wrong and the process of releasing anger on the top of that cliff lifted an enormous weight from her shoulders, as well as mine.

What a difference time and distance make.

In the midst of our angst, it often feels like it will never end. That now is forever and this is all we’ll ever feel.

But, time does heal and distance from the events does add perspective, and release.

Ellie and I climbed up to the quarry yesterday and in the silence of the forest, I danced and spun about and sang at the top of my lungs. Ellie barked and pranced around me and I laughed and knew without any uncertainty, that was then, this is now. And in the now, my difference in the world is not expressed through pain and letting go of sorrow, but rather through joy and letting go of laughter into the world around me.

If pain is clogging your pores and sorrow flows through your tears, give yourself the gift of release. Take a dozen, or two, eggs, go and sit by the water, or in the forest where you can be alone (with a friend willing to participate with you is great!). Draw and write on the eggs all the things you’d like to express to whomever or about whatever is hurting you and when you’re done drawing, hurl them at trees or rocks with all the might you can gather up. Scream and yell and let it go!

The eggs are bio-degradable. Animals will eat them and you will feed the soil. And, when you get to the last egg, stand quietly, hold it in the palm of you hand and squeeze it (but don’t break it). Tighten up your whole body, hold it hold it hold it and then, turn your palm over to face the ground, open your fist and let the egg drop.

Relax your body.

There. That’s how easy it is to release — and see what a difference that release makes?

To make pain or sorrow or anything you are holding onto that is keeping you stuck different, do something different today.

The universe will be glad you did and your body and spirit will thank you!

Sometimes, making a difference in the world requires we let go of what we’re holding onto that is limiting us from knowing — we make a difference in the world just because we are in this world!

Namaste.