The Quiet Art of Letting Go

And making space

Life has a way of accumulating things.

Not just the physical objects that gather dust in our homes like the unused kitchen gadgets, or exercise equipment that becomes a second place to hang your clothes (I haven’t used my exercise bike for a few months – but that’s because the weather is nicer and I can get outside more often for a run!).

No, the accumulation I’m talking about to is more internally: the beliefs we hang on to, the expectations we set for ourselves and others, the old pain and heart ache and struggles we revisit, the ways of being that once served us but since we change, evolve and grow, they aren’t really us anymore.

We carry this heaviness without consciously realizing it. We might feel out of sorts or a pervasive feeling that something isn’t quite right.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the phrase we hear so often in the area of personal growth and mental health: letting go. It’s a simple phrase, but it can feel so hard (and sometimes impossible) to do.

And I’ve been thinking what does ‘letting go’ really mean? Is it about forgetting the past and difficult experiences as if they never happened? Denying our feelings? I don’t know. I don’t have the answer (if there is one), but here’s my thoughts on it. I see it as an ongoing process.

I think it’s the realization and accepting that something in our lives, like a belief or habit, or the need for control, or a past version of ourselves is no longer beneficial for us. It’s no longer contributing to our growth or our peace. And then we need to decide to consciously make the decision to let that thing release its grip and fade into the background of our lives – not remain so in our faces.

Think of it like maintaining a garden. You’ve probably read a metaphor around treating yourself as a garden and planting seeds and not weeds, or something along those lines. But a flourishing garden isn't just about planting new seeds; it’s also about the weeding and making space for new things to grow. If you get rid of stuff that is no longer serving you (the weeds that are stopping the seeds from doing what they need to do), it’s an act of self care, because you’re giving yourself the space for growth and flourishing (a nod to Martin Seligman there, father of Positive Psychology and I recommend his book called ‘Flourish’).

You might be wondering what are our ‘weeds’? They can be a variety of things! Maybe the need for perfection or to be in control, or the fear of disappointing others, or being a people pleaser. Or maybe it’s a resentment from years ago that we've held onto, replaying the scenario over and over in our minds. It could some expectations about how our lives should unfold that isn’t matching reality (and really, does it ever, 100%?), leading to a kind of cognitive dissonance (which in psychology-speak is when something doesn’t match up to what we think it should be). Or perhaps it's a belief about who we are that was formed in childhood and no longer applies to who we’ve grown into, but we're still operating from that old script.

Holding onto these things can feel safe, familiar, and an essential part of our identity. They are part of our comfort zones – even if our comfort zones contain painful things. It’s better the devil you know, right?

But holding on to all this old stuff, and staying firmly stuck in your comfort zone is so limiting. It might feel great because it’s safe, but there’s no change there. It also eats up our energy, doesn’t allow new fresh perspectives and prevents us from fully embracing the amazingness that is the present moment.

It can suppress our creativity, obstruct real connection with others and keep us tied to a part of our life that isn’t helpful to us any more — our present or our future selves.

The great thing of letting go is that it isn't just about releasing something. Like weeding our inner landscapes, it also makes space. When we get rid of what no longer serves, we create space for new opportunities that we might have previously been too preoccupied to notice. But now that our inner selves are less cluttered because we’ve let go, we can fill it with new aspects of ourselves and our lives that help us take some steps closer in the direction we want to head on, on our path through life.

It isn’t ever an instant transformation, unfortunately. It’s not like one day we wake up and shout out ‘I’m letting go!’ (though we may do this with some things, such as bad habits). But most likely it’ll be a continuous and gradual shift of becoming more aware of what you need to get where you want to go.

We need to fine tune our awareness and listen to ourselves with compassion and honour our changing needs as we move through all the different seasons of life. Letting go asks us to be quietly courageous. To trust that we aren’t losing parts of ourselves when we let go of things, but instead making room for a better, more authentic version of who we are meant to be.

So, perhaps take a moment to consider what you want to let go of? It doesn’t have to be a million things, or even 10 or 5. Choose just one to start with. What invisible weight are you ready to put down? What space are you ready to create, not just for something new to enter, but for your own real self to breathe more freely? Because as I’ve said before, it’s all about the baby steps, and the smallest release can lead to the most profound shifts.

If this letter found you at the right time, feel free to share it with someone else who might need a little wonder today.

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