for the sensitive type

my husband did a strength finder test for his job. recently, i finally got around to doing it too so we could compare our results. and as i expected, my number one strength was empathy. and in a lot of ways, that pretty much means sensitivity. my greatest strength...but also my greatest weakness. sometimes my sensitivity is debilitating. sometimes it's a gift. i'm learning to appreciate and embrace it. i'm also learning to allow myself to feel all the emotions that come with it. at the retreat i attended a few weeks ago, we read this poem below. with that emotional, sensitive nature of mine, the poem spoke to me in more ways than one. i'm not sure where you are...but this poem is a perfect reminder of the natural ebb and flow of life, of loss and gain, of losing to find. so as the leaves are falling around us, what do you need to allow to fall away? maybe a relationship, a broken past, some unrealistic expectation or of yourself, or maybe even a lie you've been believing...

if i can let you go...

if i can let you go as a tree let go

their leaves, so casually, one by one;

if i can come to know what they do know,

that fall is the release, the consummation, 

then fear of time and the uncertain fruit

would not distemper the great lucid skies...

this strangest autumn, mellow and acute.

if i can take the dark with open eyes

and call it seasonal, not harsh or strange

[for love itself may need a time of sleep],

and, treelike, stand unmoved before the change,

lose what i lose to keep what i can keep,

the strange root still alive under the snow,

love will endure - if i can let you go.

-mary sarton