OVERVIEW
Kristin Panek shares that over recent years, I’ve let go of a number of longstanding paths, teachers, practices, beliefs and identities. In following the Oneness teachings, for example, I was told that eventually the path would drop me. I didn’t believe this when I heard it; I thought that this was my tribe forever. And it was — until it wasn’t. On the Guru full moon in 2019, I let go of the Oneness traditions with gratitude, though the teachings still live inside me. I’ve just returned from my second El Camino walk, on which I walked over 400 miles from Lisbon, to Santiago, Spain. Now I am feeling very empty and peaceful. Apparently, I had more to release. This time I traveled lightly, knowing that whatever I needed would show up on the way — and it did. This is true in life as well. Join us on Sunday for an exploration of letting go into Spirit and trusting that whatever you need on your path is provided. Only you can choose to receive it.
TRANSCRIPTION
Here has caused me to really look inside and see what I got from that. And so when I was asked about the topic, I said, Letting go, because I just felt empty after that walk. But then as I thought about letting go, I realized how much I’ve been letting go in the last few years in oneness. I was told that the path, the path would drop me at some point. I didn’t believe them. I thought this was my tribe forever. And it was until it wasn’t. And on the guru Full Moon in 2019, I let go of my involvement in the oneness organization with gratitude. The teachings are living inside me. Also, in 2019, my mother passed away. And with her the last of that generation in my family, I let her go with so much love and gratitude. And then I walked 500 miles across northern Spain on the French El Camina. In 2021, I let go of Shema. It’s a mystery school I’ve been a part of for 22 years. I love the work and the people dearly, and I thought I would be with them forever. But one day it was time to go, and I didn’t listen. At first, I didn’t want to, yet I knew I had to trust spirit, so I let go with gratitude. And those teachings live inside me.
In 2022, earlier this year, I let go of the physical space that is flowering heart center. I heard the message and didn’t wanna let go. Blessedly, the landlord raised our rent. So it was up for me and I couldn’t turn away. And again, I had to trust spirit and let go with gratitude. This year, my ex-husband passed away and with him a big chunk of my history that no one else alive knows. So I let go of that with gratitude, with grace. And then I walked 400 miles from Lisbon to Santiago, Spain on the Portuguese El Camino. That walk is a process of letting go. It’s not conscious, it’s simply what happens.
And the path is mine and mine alone. You know, on the Camino, I may walk with somebody for five minutes, I may walk with them for a day. I may see them in another week and again in another week. But they come and go. And my path is my journey. It doesn’t look like anyone else’s journey. And I often wonder why I had to go to India, to all those deep processes. Why I had to walk 900 miles. And my husband sits at home and he gets the teachings <laugh>. I, I wonder why <laugh>, But it’s my path. And being on the path, being on your own path requires a letting go of an attachment to it. But it also requires an awareness to tune into the cues that spirit is giving you.
So this was not my intention to become empty from walking the walk. My intention for the Camino was embodiment, full embodiment of spirit, embodying divine love. And so when I got emptiness, in retrospect, it made sense. When I tuned in for this talk, it made sense. I must become empty before I can be full with spirit. I must empty out my preconceived notions of what it means to a body divinity, of what it means to awaken. I have to empty out my strategies of how to get there, because the mine offers plenty of those. And, and that is the issue usually.
So I feel empty. There is more space for presence. So I feel both empty and full at the same time. But this emptying out started before I ever stepped path, I stepped foot on the Camino. I had to empty everything out on my bed to figure out what to put in my backpack. And I loaded up my backpack, was very, uh, proud of myself. I stripped down to the essentials for this walk. But then I put my bag on the scale and it was 20 pounds. And I’m like, Ugh, that is too much. 20 pounds before water. So again, I had to empty everything out of my backpack and examine each thing before I put it in, weighing it, Is this something I wanna carry? And I looked at my poncho and I’m like, Oh, that’s heavy. And so I thought, Hmm, all right. Can I let go of my poncho?
All right, if it rains, I’m just gonna wear my windbreaker. I’m wearing sandals because if your socks get wet, your boots, it’s not a you’re in trouble at that point. So sandals quick, dry shorts, a windbreaker, and pack everything in my plastic bag in the pack that I don’t want to get wet. So tossed the poncho. And yes, we did get rain. We had three days of rain. Uh, hurricane hit, coin bra after we left, but we were unplugged. So fortunately we didn’t know this, so we didn’t know to be worried about it. We didn’t make it bigger than it was by labeling it a hurricane. It just happened one morning that the skies opened up and buckets of water, I mean buckets of water. So we stood under this overhang that was about this. <laugh> came out this far drenched and waited. And after about 10 or 15 minutes, the rain stopped.
We stepped out and there’s streams of water running. Like I’ve never seen so much water occur or show up in a mil in a moment like that. But the sun came out and we decided we’d walk. And three or four times that day, the skies opened up, poured buckets of water one time in the middle of the forest where there was nowhere to hide. And it stopped and we continued and I dried out. So my strategy did work for the rain. And, but back to the packing, before I left out, went my extra T-shirt out, went my extra pair of shorts out, went my first aid kit. All right, So last time, <laugh>, last time all I needed was Advil. I had a couple blisters, so I needed a needle and thread and bandaids, but that doesn’t weigh much. So that’s it. And I remember the Camino provides whatever I need shows up.
So I, I tossed out what I could. I weighed my backpack and it was 18 pounds. And I’m like, Oh, only two pounds. And I thought, I let go of so much. I does this sound familiar <laugh>, yes, but it would have to do. So I arrived in Lisbon. It’s a gorgeous city, but I found out it’s nickname The Seven Hills. And I’m like, Oh no, I thought this was gonna be less hilly than Spain was. But I had to let go of my expectations around that. And in the morning when we stopped by the cathedral to start to find the arrow there, there was this hand drawn hard to see, yellow arrow like near the ground. You’d never find it unless you were really looking for it. And I thought, Oh no, I hope the markings get better from here.
So the first few days were difficult, long days, few markings, no water, relentless sun. And we ran outta water a few times. In those first few days, I had to knock on the doors of the locals. We had to carry our full packs for the first couple days. And then we’re like, This is too much. We’re sending those by taxi. We’re carrying our day packs, which is still heavy with all the water. But we were supported. We did find the water, we did find our way. And the body, the body is in shock, working, walking 15 miles a day. Let me just tell you, there’s just no way to soften that shock. So the first few days, the body’s getting adjusted. It’s going up and down hills for me. It takes a good 10 days for it to really settle in. So I had to let go again and again, hardly anyone starts in Lisbon. This is why it’s hard in the beginning. Most of them start further up. They start many start in portal, which is 10 days before Santiago.
But I was grateful for the experience because what I learned, what I experienced walking 20 to 30 kilometers a day, is that the destination is a long way off <laugh>. That’s what I learned. You might be standing on top of the hill and looking at the horizon and you’re walking there. It’s just, you cannot focus on the destination. Yes, I set my intention, I’m going there and then I step out into the world. But I have to let go of getting there. I have to instead sink into the joy of just putting one step in front of the other. I had to actually tune into the walking and love the movement. And that movement can be very healing. It can also be a lot of stress on the body. It depends on where you put your attention, right? So I had to tune in and put my attention constantly on what serves me and feeling how it’s healing me is what serves me. So through the walk, I became more aware. I start to let go of negativity cuz I can feel the, the impact of those negative thoughts. You know, it, it kind of pulls my attention inward and my, when my attention is inward, I trip over the rock in front of me or I miss the yellow arrow. And believe me, you don’t wanna walk anymore extra miles than you need to on this thing. So I learn, I learn to scan internally for anything that needed my attention to my walking, to send energy to certain places.
And I learned to put my attention outside to see what, what is happening in my environment. Attention has to be in both places. Again, too internal. I miss something in front of me. I miss, I can’t respond to the dog that’s running towards me. I can’t respond to the biker that’s coming down my back unexpectedly. So this presence, this staying with what’s happening inside of me while I’m looking and feeling into the environment is the place where we can respond in life, where we can connect to that guidance, where we can connect to that intuition. And I realized that I had 30 days of practicing that because when I’m walking, I’m in motion. I have to have my attention this way. This was awakening me in ways I did not fully even, I still fully do not understand now. I just noticed that when I get in the car, like to come here now my attention just floats away.
I have to, it takes effort to bring it back. And I’m noticing it now because I had to be on it constantly for those 30 days. So you are your attention. Where you placing your attention is you, I realized through the walking, my body was doing the walking automatically. I was a passenger. It was fun to watch it. My thinking is happening automatically. If it weren’t, if I was thinking I could stop the thoughts and there was no way of stopping the thoughts. So the thinking is happening. The body is walking. I’m a passenger. I am my attention. Am I putting my attention on, uh, you know, something negative or am I putting it on the joy, the connection, my connection to myself, to spirit and to the world around me. So that awareness was key and was, uh, highly developed through this experience.
So I realize that not only is this awareness giving me this experience, a presence and joy in the moment, but the guidance is really helpful because one day we were walking past this hostile, this, it was a beautiful hostile. And we were were, uh, we had five miles left to go that day. We were on a short day. So I said, Let’s go look at this hostel. We were walking by, It’s beautiful. We go in there and we thought, well, let’s get a stamp. So as a pilgrim, you’re getting stamps at various places along the way to prove, to prove that you’ve been to these different places and you turn them in when you get to Spain and you get a certificate that you walked the camino. So we went in, we got a stamp, and we look on the floor and our bags are there, our bags, were not supposed to be there.
They’re supposed to be five miles down the road at our destination. And we thought, wow. So the lady there, um, offered to take our bags to the next town. This is the only time our bags got mixed up. You know, it was bag transport services, there’s taxis. This was the only time and we were guided to go look at that hostile, which we never do. So this is the kind of guidance that we get when we’re fully present to ourselves and let go of what we think we should be doing, what we, where we think we should be going. And there are many more stories of miracles that happen. And watching anytime I thought, I can’t do this right when it’s too much for my body, I just can’t keep going. I, I look and see the other pilgrims. They’ve been walking this path since the eighth century.
And there’s these two women in their eighties. They’re shuffling along, they’re in their late eighties. They had these big packs and carrying a shopping bag, shuffling along. And I looked at my friend Dawn, who I was walking with, I’m like, Surely they can’t be walking the Camino. They were walking the Camino. I saw them further on almost to the destination. I’m sure they made it. And we walked for a while with another man, a beautiful couple from New York. And the man was totally blind. Now you wouldn’t know it at first because she’s just walking next to him, holding his elbow, and he’s walking along just like we are. And he’s blind going up and down. Rocky slopes, steps, all kinds of different cobblestone pathways. Amazing. He made it. It’s extraordinary. So whatever you set as your intention, the mind may come and say it’s impossible. But it’s not impossible. And it’s not up to you to figure out how to get there. Spirit will get you there time and time again. I see this.
So I let go of the things I let go of what my conception was to do this walk, what it looks like to be on the path. I let go of my small ideas, my minds fears. I let go of the things that take me away from experiencing the moment. And the more I let go, the more room there was for spirit. So let’s practice a little letting go for a moment. If you wanna close your eyes and take a deep breath in and release it fast and take another deep breath in and hold it and create tension in the body. Tense up everything. Your, your legs, your arms, your head, your body, your toes. Hold the breath tense more. That’s right. Good job. Hold it, hold it. Let go.
Doesn’t that feel great? You just let go of more than you know. And now that you know it feels good, Let’s do this one more time. Inhale tense. Everything. Bring in the tension you’re carrying in your mind, your fears, your worries, your anxieties. Intensify in. Hold the breath, hold the breath. You can do this. Hold and let go. Now deep inhale. Slow exhale, deep inhale. Slow exhale. Letting go is as natural as exhaling. Feel that rhythm of taking in and letting go. And now bring to mind something that causes you. Fear. Could be fear of the future, fear of rejection, fear of failure. See the fear and notice the constriction in the body. That fear is holding on. It’s grasping. Notice your inhale and exhale. Maybe more shallow. Take a breath, relax the body. The fear is just a thought. Let it go. Return to deep inhale. Slow exhale. So now bring to mind a situation where you’re trying to control someone or something. If it’s not happening now you can go back in time. Find a situation where you’re trying to control. Feel the tension caused by the need to control. Zip pos it possible to control someone else or your current environment. Take a breath, shift your perspective.
Exhale. Deep inhale. Slow exhale. Now bring a story to mind of how you were hurt. Feel the reaction in the body. Feel the sensations that arise. Take a breath, Let go of that story. Allow forgiveness by letting go of the hurt. Deep inhale, slow exhale. Bring to mind something or someone you’re very attached to. Feel the places where you’re holding on, where you’re grasping or afraid to lose it. Notice your breathing right now. Relax the body. Take a breath. Let go into love. Take a breath, let go. Again, deep inhale, slow exhale. Feel the space you’ve created. Tune into the silence. What in your life is calling you? What is that still small voice saying to you? Keep some of your attention inside as you open your eyes and bring your attention to the service. Thank you.