This is a biannual event at our church....the burning bowl ceremony...
Once before Lent...as we don't believe in 'giving up' something only with the goal of taking it back up after 40 days...we use the 40 days to break a habit, or as a spring board to modify behaviour.
The other time is New Year's Eve. Folks write down various attitudes and thoughts they want to eliminate from their lives, judgment, prejudice, lack, negativity, jealousy, etc.
Some churches use flash paper and do it in church, we do it outside in a large bowl....because many of the folks write pages of stuff.
It is wonderful symbolism letting it go into the fire.
Another fun thing we do is "Letters to G!d" Sort of like letters to Santa Claus as a kid. We write letters to G!d saying what our plans are in the next year...what we are going to let go of, what we are going to take on, how we intend to grow. We then place the letters in an envelope addressed to ourselves. The church sends our letters unopened back to us in June....a little wakeup call, a reminder, giving us six months to fulfill our intentions. The only one that sees what we wrote is us....and....
Sorry about talking churchy in the lounge....but you brought us to let it go!
(too funny the theme that was our retreat last weekend with over a hundred high schoolers from 6 different states was "Let Go and Live" and they set up a burning bowl there too...and two weeks ago we did it with the middle school kids...but they verbally said, "this stick represents me letting go of _____________" and then they tossed the stick into the bonfire...)