Fresh Fall: A Season for Letting Go

by Therese Daniels, LPC, CNIT

Ever since my children have been school aged, we’ve started using the term “Fresh Fall.” As far as I am concerned, the school year calendar holds a lot more meaning and determines a lot more of my life’s direction than the general year calendar. So not only does the air feel more fresh and crisp, for us it is a time for new routines, new haircuts, new clothes, new activities, new workout plans, and new eating habits. Things return to a steadier flow, settling from the wild, sweet freedom of summer. 

In my experience, the beginning of new things usually means the release of something old. As the seasons shift and the air turns crisp, autumn reminds us of the beauty of letting go. A belief I hold close to my heart, one that guides me through the waves of the year, is that we are meant to follow nature’s lead through the seasons. Just as the trees release their leaves, we, too, can use this season of fall, to release what no longer serves us. This may include old habits, toxic situations, lingering worries, or heavy emotions. The falling leaves are not a sign of loss but of nature’s pure wisdom. Nature is preparing for rest, renewal, and the eventual bloom of new growth. In this way, Fall becomes a gentle teacher showing us that release is not an ending, but an important step toward healing and transformation.

A “Fresh Fall” means more than a change in weather—it’s an opportunity to embrace clarity and space in our own lives. By letting go of what is weighing us down, we create room for new beginnings, fresh perspectives, and deeper peace. Much like nature makes way for the quiet stillness of winter and the new life of spring, we can welcome change with open hands and open hearts. This season invites us to trust the process, honor the beauty of release, and look forward to what’s waiting to take root in us.

Therese Daniels is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Certified Nature-Informed Therapist providing individual, couples, family, and group counseling in both indoor and outdoor settings. She earned her Bachelor’s degree at Villanova University and her Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology at Immaculata University. She began her experience in mental health as a college intern and has been in the field ever since. While her early experience centered around supporting children, adolescents, and families, her experience over the past decade has expanded to include adults and couples. Her emphasis today is on nature-based, mindfulness practices with clients of all ages. Drawing from Nature Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Mindfulness-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Solution-Focused Therapy, she supports people with anxiety and depression as well as those navigating life transitions, developing coping skills, and looking to strengthen their self esteem. She facilitates growth and healing by integrating tools from energy work, body movement, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), and creative arts expression. She works collaboratively with clients to create treatment goals and discover methods that best meet their needs. To learn more, see her website at https://www.theresedanielscounseling.com/ or call her at 410-919-9673.

Color Visualization Exercise to Release Tension

by Kathleen Krol, MSS, LCSW, RPT-S

 

Scan your body beginning with your head down to your feet and notice if there is any tension anywhere. If there is, bring your open-hearted curiosity to it. Allow yourself think of the area of tension as a color. Invite yourself to notice if the tension has a shape, texture, and temperature to it as well. Next think of a color you like that makes you feel calm and relaxed. Does this color have a shape, texture, and temperature? Imagine this color coming in through the top of your head like rays of light or mist and going to the spot of tension. Imagine this color permeating around the area of tension and bringing in calm, softening the spot of tension, perhaps maker it smaller. You may want to breathe gently as you continue to allow the calming color to soften the tension.

 

Another variation of this exercise is to imagine the tension is a color you don’t like. As you take a breath in, then breathe out, imagine you are releasing the color along with the tension. With each exhale, you are blowing out the tension and this color. Now imagine a color that you do like, that makes you feel relaxed and calm. As you breath in, imagine that color coming in with your breath and think “calm”. Continue to exhale, saying “letting go of tension” silently in your mind each time you breath out. Imagine more of the calm color entering your body as you slowly breathe in and relax.

 

Letting Go and Embracing Hope

by Kathleen Krol, MSS, LCSW, RPT-S

 

Traditionally, December is a time of looking back at the highlights of the past year, joining in varied holiday and spiritual celebrations and waiting in anticipation of what the new year will bring. This December, like most of 2020, will be different. For many, the lows may have overshadowed the highs, holiday and spiritual gatherings may be smaller with the absence of significant others, and individuals may be cautious and apprehensive about what the new year brings, rather than hopeful. So how does one let go of the negativity of 2020, shift energy to embrace the potential for positive, and move forward into 2021 with hope?

 

Letting go does not necessarily mean forgetting. Instead, it is about releasing the negative energy that can cling to us. Letting go is acceptance of the things we did not have control of this past year: circumstances, the world, others. Letting go is more about choosing how we respond and whether we choose to hold tight to negative energy or release it and make space for new energy. Letting go is a process and can have many paths.

 

The process of letting go and shifting your energy might start with a check-in (both physically and mentally) when there are situations or personal interactions which trigger a “hot spot.” A “hot spot” can be a negative or uncomfortable emotion, thought or body sensation. If you have been in survival mode this past year, you may not have had time to process your frustration, anger, sadness, and other feelings. What would enable you to experience your feelings?

 

Possibilities may include talking it out, journaling, movement, music, art, expressing through writing poetry or a song. Once you have allowed yourself to experience and express the emotion, then you are more open to letting go of any remaining negative energy. Ritual can be another symbolic way of letting go and moving forward. Writing down what you want to let go of and then releasing it through burning it or ripping it up are two ways. Another idea is to write words or situations on stones and toss them into a creek or river. Name the situation, take a deep breath and as you blow out, toss the stone saying, “I release this” or “I let go of this”.

 

Letting go and transforming the energy from negative to more positive can be through shifting your focus from one of defeat to one of empowerment. Look back at the past year and notice your personal strengths, supports and resources and the strategies that helped you to cope. Acknowledge you made it through your own perseverance and endurance and that you may be stronger than you think. Invite yourself to recognize that this inner strength – and those external resources – will be there for future challenges as well.

 

Moving forward into the new year, you may invite yourself to take each day as it comes. First, be kind to yourself. This past year has taken a lot of emotional and mental energy. Give yourself time for personal reflection and self-care this last month of the year and as we go forward into 2021. Allow time for yourself to replenish your energy, nurturing and caring for yourself first.  Rather than create New Year resolutions in which you may try to compensate for unfinished tasks of the past year, consider aiming for smaller, more doable goals. You might try a daily challenge – such as substituting one healthy snack (like fruit) for a “pandemic comfort food” (like cookies) – rather than setting a loftier goal of losing all the weight you gained during 2020. Maybe you can aim to walk 15 minutes every other day or schedule a long walk weekly, rather than criticizing yourself when you don’t exercise daily. Starting with smaller, more easily achievable goals will give you a boost of confidence, and these small successes are likely to build on themselves.

 

Last, you may want to try replacing apprehension about the future with a sense of curiosity to what the day and year will bring. Aim to be curious as you go about your day, using your senses to bring you into a more full appreciation of things you might normally take for granted. This may include noticing, smelling, feeling, tasting, or touching something new and really experiencing it in the here-and-now. Simple pleasures like the taste of a crisp apple, the warmth of the sun through the window, and the sound of birds chirping can bring delight when we bring our full attention and curiosity. Try to find one new thing each day to truly savor.

 

In little ways, you can be conscious and intentional in letting go, shifting your energy, deepening your focus, and discovering hope as you finish out this year and prepare for the next. Depending on the intensity of your individual circumstances, you may find you are still holding unto something that is challenging to let go of by yourself. If that is the case, be kind to yourself and seek support with friends, family, or a professional. Some burdens are too heavy to carry alone, and you may not be able to let go until you are fully witnessed by someone else. We are here to help.

 

Kathleen Krol is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Registered Play Therapist who works with individuals, children, teens, and families using a family focused and integrative approach to treatment. Areas of expertise include trauma, anxiety, depression, grief/loss, life transitions and adoption and attachment issues. She specializes in EMDR with all ages, Play Therapy, Family Therapy, Sand Tray and Sand Focusing Therapy and Parent Coaching. If you would like to learn more, go to www.kathleenkrol.com or contact her at kasiakrol17@verizon.net or 215-289-3101#1.

Becoming what I might be

by Karen Steinbrecher

Reflecting on this month’s theme of letting go, I am reminded of a quote by Lao Tzu who said, “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” Bill Douglas, Co-Founder of World TaiChi and QiGong day, recently shared his observation that when some students discover the reality that they are “a flawed wandering human being on this earthly plane,” they think TaiChi and QiGong don’t work and wonder, “Why bother?” He remarked that being a teacher of QiGong can be difficult because students often form idealized versions of their teachers. And, as with all idealized versions of anything, disappointment inevitably follows. Students learn that the teacher is a human being walking on the same Earth with the same journey of life as they are. We are all working through life lessons. In one setting, I am the teacher. In another, you are. Much of the time, our teaching and learning happen simultaneously. As Ram Dass says, “We’re all just walking each other home.”

TaiChi and QiGong and meditation ultimately require “letting go” to be done well, fully present in the moment. Look at the great Masters doing QiGong and TaiChi; they appear to be “unhinged and liquid”, says Douglas. This is not a technical skill as much as a whole soul surrender on the deepest level mentally, emotionally, and physically. In QiGong, we call this level of deep surrender “the sinking.” 

Douglas defines the sinking as “this exquisite, all encompassing love that the world and universe are made of, this energy that is the quantum field from which ALL emerges”. This beautiful, radiant energy is what awaits when we let go of our grip on things. As Douglas writes, surrender “asserts itself in subtle silken ways.” The impulse to “hold on” - to the known, the familiar, the comfortable, the idealized teacher, the old ideas of who we are and how the world should be - is so strong. But the rewards of letting go are profound. The “sinking” has a richness to it that is worth the discomfort of loosening our grip. The practice of QiGong and TaiChi may appear physical in nature, but the positive ripple is pervasive throughout all aspects of our lives. Learning to let go through QiGong helps us move - in every facet of our lives - with greater freedom and peace. 

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Letting Go

by Trudy Gregson, MS, LPC

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.” - Tao Te Ching

Who hasn't struggled with letting go at one time or another? Cleaning out a closet and letting go of old favorites that don’t fit or aren’t your style anymore. Letting go of expectations - yours or someone else’s - to be the parent, partner, friend, daughter or son you’re “supposed” to be. Or letting go of a wish that something outside of your control can be different.  Maybe you’ve noticed it as feeling “stuck”, or perhaps it’s a little voice in the back of your head, or a good friend advising, “Let it go.” We know we should, so why is it so hard?

           

There are as many reasons why it’s hard as there are reasons for letting go: fear of judgment or regret, fear of failure, fear of the unknown, to name a few. Holding on can feel safe and familiar, while the notion of letting go may be fraught with fear or anxiety. It can feel like a tug-of-war as we weigh our options, ask for advice, ruminate.

           

So there we are, stuck in this tug-of-war, neither side letting go. How do we get “unstuck”? Perhaps it seems counterintuitive, but letting go requires us to move towards the fear or anxiety. It’s your fear, unique to you, and your fear can’t actually hurt you. So rather than “letting go” of fear, I invite you to welcome it by tuning in to what you’re noticing as you think about letting go. Maybe it’s a feeling in your stomach, or your chest, or your head, or more of an “all over” sensation. Maybe an image comes to mind, or a memory. Instead of labeling it as unpleasant and pushing it away or trying to shut it down, take a few deep breaths and see if you can be present with it, accepting that it’s here, and noticing what it needs you to know.

           

Your feelings about letting go are simply trying to get your attention, like the monster that lurks under a child’s bed when it’s time to surrender to sleep. How can a child sleep with a monster under the bed? So the parent dutifully checks under the bed, in the closet, in the corners and says, “There’s no monster.” The parent uses monster spray, just to be sure. When the parent is finished attending to the monster, does the child really believe there’s definitely no monster in the room? Probably not, but the child’s fears feel heard. The parent knows about the monster now, too. The child isn’t experiencing it alone. Maybe there is a monster, but the parent is there with the child, just down the hall.

           

We can be with the monsters that get in the way of letting go without them overpowering us. We don’t need to persuade them, just to listen. Once they feel our presence and feel heard, they tend to loosen their grip. You don’t let go of feelings, they let go of you. Then you can let go of old beliefs or behaviors, creating space for new possibilities, new opportunities, and new beliefs that fit who you really are. 

Trudy Gregson is a Licensed Professional Counselor who works with adults experiencing depression and anxiety, relationship issues, life transitions, grief and loss. Trudy brings mindfulness practice to her work with her clients to help them cultivate compassion for themselves and create the space for change. Trudy offers a free 30-minute phone consultation and can be reached at trudygregsontherapy@gmail.com or 267-652-1732.

AHO!

by Elizabeth Campbell, MS, LPC, RPT-S

“Ahooooooooo!”  I had no idea what this phrase means, but it seemed like everyone around me was feeling great as they said it very loudly.  Almost a decade ago, I went on a yoga retreat called the Art of Letting Go in Mexico with Maura Manzo, yoga teacher extraordinaire and cofounder of Yoga Home in Conshohocken.  It was a combination of yoga, meditation, and local shamanic rituals.  One of those rituals was a Temezcal, or a sweat lodge.  It sounds worse than it is.  It basically was a long meditation in a hot little hut with aromatherapy.  You go through several stages of releasing, ending in a metaphorical rebirth.  One of those stages is making noise.  People all around me were screaming and yelling, “Aho” as I sat in the back of the hut, frozen and silent.  I left. 

In that moment, nothing felt scarier than expressing what I needed to release.  There is so much vulnerability in seeing and expressing our feelings, even if it is in a nonverbal catharsis. I needed way more safety than what was present in my system in that moment. I didn’t know all of the people in the group well; I was sitting in the back of the hut between two especially expressive and vocal yogis, and my senses and emotions were overwhelmed.  We need strategies to cope with the overwhelming impact of freeing our emotions, and we have to feel safe in order to let go.  This can be particularly hard if open communication wasn’t the norm in our early lives or if prior attempts to express ourselves were met with confusion, disdain, apathy, or anger. If it was unsafe to communicate feelings in the past, it can be all the more challenging to express them now.

Releasing long held emotional baggage can also connect us with deep feelings of grief and loss.  What do we have if we let go of the things that take up so much of us?  It is important to honor this loss and the feelings that come along with it.  Even if we do not particularly like what we are holding onto, our pain is part of us and may feel like it makes us who we are.  Letting go may feel like losing our roots, our very foundation. So it is vital that we find ways to ground ourselves – in our bodies and to the solidness of the earth.

Of course, none of this was going through my head during my sweat lodge experience.  I was in complete nervous system activation – and flight let me protect myself.  The following year I returned to the same retreat and the same dreaded sweat lodge.  The retreat really was lovely and I was determined to face my fears and release everything I was holding onto.  I spent the year connecting and building my yogi community, including those on the trip and the leaders.  I consciously chose to sit near the exit in case I felt claustrophobic or overwhelmed.  I continuously focused on feeling the ground beneath me and the wall supporting my back.  The safety and grounding that I established were enough to give way to the vulnerability of release and the wonderful freedom that it brought.  And I screamed my head off.  Aho!!

Elizabeth Campbell is a Licensed Profession Counselor who provides empowerment and strength-based support to individuals in personal growth and change.  She specializes in play therapy with children, family therapy, creative counseling for adolescents, and trauma-informed treatment for all ages using an integrative, mindful approach to address the whole individual and promote healing. If you would like to connect with Elizabeth, reach out at elizabeth@elizabethcampbellcounseling.com or 610-757-8163 or learn more at www.elizabethcampbellcounseling.com.

Autumn and The Art of Gracefully Letting Go

by Tracie Nichols, MA, CCSP

Fall is my favorite season. I love the colors, the way the earth smells, and I especially enjoy having fewer humid days. But, what I most love is how the seasonal rhythm encourages me to deepen my personal development journey.

Every year autumn invites us to distill all we have acquired, learned, and experienced through spring and summer. New habits, freshly discovered strengths, new ways of seeing ourselves - these are all integrated and refined to guide us as we discern the next right steps.

Autumn also demonstrates the art of gracefully releasing what we no longer choose to carry. Take a moment to notice what your wild neighbors are doing, now. Trees release leaves. Plants let go of what is above ground and pull their energy into their roots. Deer drop antlers.

Consider consciously aligning with autumn’s gentle releasing rhythm to let go of beliefs, fears, or habits that no longer nurture you.

Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

Spend uninterrupted time outdoors observing and feeling the pace of life in your ecosystem. Let it sink into your bones. 

As you watch leaves fall, visualize the things you choose to release drifting away from you.

If you rake leaves or pull weeds, imagine gathering those things that no longer serve and composting them with the garden trimmings.

On foggy autumn mornings, imagine that the fog represents the things you are releasing. See them being evaporated as the sun rises.

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
    love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Listen to the poem here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hnifn3rf6mndsud/Wild%20Geese%20~%20Mary%20Oliver.m4a?dl=0

Tracie Nichols, MA, CCSP is a Holistic Career Coach who believes we can learn a lot from nature about being happy humans. She offers individual career coaching and strategy sessions, as well as classes helping highly sensitive and multipotentialed people create a meaningful, enjoyable work life. Learn more about Tracie at tracienichols.com or connect with her at tracie@tracienichols.com or 215-527-5457.

10 Steps to Greater Joy

In Awakening Joy (2012), Baraz and Alexander describe ten steps to happiness, based on ancient teachings and current research in psychology, science, and habit change. Their Awakening Joy program offers a compelling overview of resources and practices to create greater joy - and release those habits and perspectives that no longer serve us.  

Step One: Focus Our Mind on Joy

When we focus on achieving goals and gratifying our desires as pathways for joy, the satisfaction rarely lasts very long – and we may find ourselves on an endless quest for the next moment of pleasure or met objective. Because everything is in a state of continual change, no experience or object can provide endless happiness. Therefore, awakening joy is not about changing our lives but is instead about training our mind to “live in a way that allows us to be truly happy with our life as it is right now” (pp.6-7).    

Step Two: Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a gentle observance of things as they are.  Mindfulness invites us to pause, notice our ever-changing thoughts, feelings, and body sensations, and bring curiosity to our interactions and experiences of living. When we cultivate mindfulness, we become present for our life. “When we are mindful, even the most ordinary experiences become wondrous” (p.35).

Step Three: Practice Gratitude

Positive Psychology and gratitude researchers have found that people who write down three to five things per day that they are happy about and grateful for are 25% happier than those who do not. 

Step Four: Find Joy in Difficult Times

Life is stressful, and many things happen outside of our control. When we are facing challenges, we do not want to pretend we are happy or deny our pain. We are happier when we allow ourselves to be mindfully present with our feelings as they arise, practice gentleness with ourselves, keep a wider perspective, and learn strategies to “stop the spin” of worry and fear.

Step Five: Act with Kindness and Integrity

When we are on autopilot, we may speak and act in ways we later regret. When we recognize that all actions have consequences – and choose to act and speak consciously with kindness and integrity, we can experience the “bliss of blamelessness” (p.121). Choosing to act with integrity also includes being true to ourselves and making choices that do not harm other or self.

Step Six: The Joy of Letting Go

This can include letting go of “stuff” we don’t need, beliefs we hold too tightly, our habit of being busy, our expectations of ourselves and others, stories that limit us, attachment to drama, and our need to be right. When we let go, we create space for generosity, creativity, and a greater sense of well-being.

Step Seven: Loving Ourselves

While we may easily identify a few things we like about ourselves, fully accepting and embracing ourselves as we are is often far more challenging. This practice may begin with forgiving ourselves and opening to the love and appreciation others have for us. It can also include taking good care of ourselves, practicing loving self-talk, and learning to treat ourselves with the kindness we would bestow upon a beloved child or pet.

Step Eight: Loving Others

Sharing a loving connection with others requires us to shift the focus off ourselves. Without a self-focused agenda, we can remain curious and open, allowing the person before us to be who they are and at ease in our presence. This step also includes forgiveness. When we open our hearts and practice lovingkindness for all beings, we move towards greater joy.

Step Nine: Compassion

“At its core, compassion is a recognition that we are all interconnected, that your suffering is my suffering, that when I see you in pain, my heart trembles” (p.240). Keeping our hearts open to the suffering of others takes courage, patience, and practice. Mindfulness practices can greatly support us in staying present with compassion, without shutting down, running away, or becoming overwhelmed.

Step Ten: The Joy of Simply Being

As we learn to deeply relax our body and mind, our natural capacity for well-being and happiness emerges. The experience of being may be described as resting in this moment, spacious, calm, restful, aware, and light. There are many pathways to sink into this relaxed, effortless presence. Some include connecting with nature and listening to the voice inside.

To learn more about the book or order a copy, visit Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Joy-10-Steps-Happiness/dp/1937006220/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1429554639&sr=1-1&keywords=awakening+joy ]

Listening to the Body

By Dana Barron

The human body has the innate capacity to heal, given the proper conditions. While outside interventions may facilitate healing, the body is doing the actual healing work. The more we can tap into and enable that innate capacity, the healthier and more resilient we will be. The first step is to learn to pay attention to and respect the body’s messages. Symptoms are signals, guides. They indicate that our system is out of balance, that we need to take action to return to equilibrium. Pain is a message to stop. Fatigue is a message to rest.

This all may seem obvious, but it is not what we are conditioned to do. We are more likely to fight our symptoms than to heed their signals. We live according to clocks and calendars, not the rhythms of the body. And so we learn to “power through” discomfort. We treat symptoms as nuisances to be overcome or quieted. We respond to pain with medications, fatigue with food or caffeine, and use antacids and gas pills for indigestion. And medicine – with its focus on procedures and pharmaceuticals -- is based more on fighting symptoms than on asking why they are there in the first place. Quelling symptoms may allow us to continue to function, but over time the cost of ignoring what the body is telling us can be very serious.

As a health coach, I start with helping clients reorient their understanding of the body’s messages. We look closely at symptoms, physical sensations, and emotional reactions. We enlist them as clues in the search for root causes. This is the first step in creating an environment where healing can happen. We start discovering correlations and patterns, many of which point to easy solutions. Often we find that removing something can be more powerful than doing something or taking something.

Listening to your body is also of way of regaining power and control over your health. Many people see their bodies as a “black box,” a machine that requires an expert to repair.  There are certainly times when medical intervention is essential and miraculous. When symptoms get strong or persistent, it’s wise to seek expert guidance. View it as a partnership – bring your knowledge and wisdom into the exam room. Enlist health professionals as allies in your search for the reasons behind symptoms. Be cautious about interventions that just mask symptoms.

If something is bothering you, give this strategy a try. Track your symptoms along with your diet and your daily activities. Try pausing when a symptom arises, and think creatively about what your options are. Can you rest briefly rather than reach for something to perk you up or relieve an ache? Try a dietary or lifestyle change and see if it helps you feel better. Over time you will cultivate your intuition and wisdom and the benefits will multiply. 

Periscope View by Dean Solon

sitting, with an unfolding to a wider view, to a larger, broader, more extensive perspective of landscape, of mindscape.

sitting...rising above the easily seen...is a spacious view of  big sky stretching to distant horizons...is a view of a vastness of ocean, opening expanding reaching out to distant shorelines...is a view that fills, and spills over the banks the barriers and the boundaries of our limited awareness;  is a view that transcends belief and logic and scientific theory.

ripples in the sunlit pool.
you are seeing ripples in the sunlit pool...ripples streaming from left to right...
a perfectly manifesting expressing of a spaciousness
for a seeing, in this         this         this         moment---
              that all concerns and cares
             of this world
             are ripples in the sunlit pool.
             are ripples in the sunlit pool of human time.

a raised view, looking down upon a planet whose surface is mainly water.
waves---ripples on the water---streaming on a great expanse from left to right.
all of it---all of this---attractions, distractions, all of the movement and motion, all of the light allowing a seeing of the motion, all of the expressing and embodying and manifesting of the increasing activity that is the living of the planet and is the living of you...ripples on the water.
grist for the mill.

the dance---Shiva's dance,
the rocking and rolling and swaying of zikhr (remembrance)---
the only dance there is.
ripples on the water.

it is a view of loosening the reins.
it is a way of letting go.