“Love isn’t always about hanging on. Sometimes it’s about letting go.” — Reham Khan

I’ve been asked a lot lately to write about “letting go.”

In my experience of working with people to help them get unstuck and moving forward over the past few decades, this topic has proven to be one of the toughest challenges they’ve faced. It’s also been one of the biggest stumbling blocks to their happiness.

It’s been the same for me in my own life. I’ve wrestled with this one more times than I can remember. So I really do understand how hard it can be.

Whether it’s a person, a relationship, a home, a job, a situation, a memory that hurts, an argument, beloved inanimate objects or anything else, it can be incredibly difficult to let go and move on.

So what’s that about anyway?

Well, in my personal and professional experience, it comes down to a few basics of human nature. When we dig into the underlying thoughts and feelings, they’re usually about some sort of fear. It might be a fear of change, such as, “Who will I be without this person/job/marriage or other circumstance?” Or “I’ll never find another house I love as much as this one!”

Perhaps you keep chewing on an argument or a decision that didn’t turn out as you’d hoped and now you’re drowning in regret, replaying it over and over and over in your mind, as though somehow, this is going to magically create a better ending.

Kind of like what I do every single time I watch the incredible classic, Gone With the Wind and I get to the end … I’ve probably seen it 20 times and still, I wish, wish, wish! for a different ending. But it never happens.

Go figure. 🧐🤓

One of the most challenging issues I’ve seen regarding “letting go” is when it comes to accepting difficult people as they are. Often, we still hope we’ll get the response we desire. There’s the tendency to think, “Maybe this time, it’ll be different!”

But, um … nope.

This sort of situation can often leave us feeling like we did something wrong, like we were stupid for having dared believe maybe this time it could be different.

Can I just say … this only makes matters worse. There’s nothing wrong with hoping. There’s nothing wrong with giving people another chance. There’s nothing wrong with trusting someone we love, and daring to try one more time. Their lack of a positive response speaks volumes about them. All it says about us is that we’re doing our best to be kind and to give someone the benefit of the doubt because it’s true, people can change. Heaven knows I certainly behaved dreadfully in my extremely messed up, much younger adult life. I’m not that person anymore. So I know others can change, too.

Whether they do it is another story. But you’re not defective because you hope it might happen.

When you’re dealing with difficult people or situations that do your head in over and over again, the best course of action is to accept them as they are.

Sure. How the hell do you do that?

By letting go of the angst. By not allowing yourself to engage in frustrating thoughts and replaying upsetting conversations over and over in your mind. By minding your boundaries, and leaving those people to carry on as they are. By not giving them even a tiny portion of your happiness (which you do every time you let their behaviour upset you).

I’m not saying it’s easy, especially if you live in the same house with difficult people or if you’re in a close relationship with them. But the more you choose not to engage in these unhealthy thoughts and interactions, the easier it gets.

So what about when it’s a relationship you don’t want to lose? What about when you’re freaking out because your spouse or “significant other” wants to end the relationship while you’re desperate not to let go? Or you have to sell the house you’ve worked so hard to turn into your home and you’re coming apart at the seams trying to hang onto it when it’s a financial impossibility?

I understand about loss. I understand about having to walk away from people, from homes, from “stuff” I’ve loved and that I thought would be part of my life forever. I moved last spring and it was my 50th house move. Only a handful of these were happy moves. Almost all of them happened in distressing, chaotic, traumatic and/or turbulent circumstances.

One of them in particular was terribly painful — my supposed “forever home” that clearly was not. I wasn’t just holding on to that beautiful old stone cottage as if my life depended on it, I was clinging to the dream that went with it. A dream I would then move heaven and earth to try to keep alive or resuscitate in one form or another for many more years. To say this did me no favours would be an understatement.

While I was deep into hanging onto my cottage for dear life, I came to understand a painful truth that has stuck with me ever since.

Sometimes the holding on is harder than the letting go.

While you’re busy holding on, you’re immersed in fear, even if you don’t recognise it as such. You’re so afraid that the relationship or job or whatever it is will be taken from you or will disappear, you can’t stand it. What on earth will you do if you let it go? If it’s gone? How will you function? What will happen? Who will you be without it/him/her?

So you cling a little more, you grab on a little tighter, thinking if you just squeeze harder, you won’t have to let go of whatever it is.

But it’s exhausting to hold on. Fear sucks the life out of you. Worrying and gnawing on it and obsessing about all the “what ifs” will drive you nuts. It saps your energy. Depletes your creativity. Fills you up with negative energy that causes stress and inflammation. This can bring about a variety of ailments from mild ones to some pretty big nasty miseries and health issues that you really do not want.

Fear will eat you alive. I remember a terrible period of years during which I was struggling financially and fearing bankruptcy. The more I focused on the fear, the more of it I got. And the worse my financial situation became.

When I couldn’t cope with the terrifying knot in my gut anymore and I finally let go of the angst and embraced the inevitable, everything changed.

So How Do You Actually “Let Go”?

You do it by first realising that it’s time to move on. By allowing yourself to believe that whatever it is, it is not — or was not — meant for you. And then with every rebellious, “But…!” thought that rolls through your mind, you let it go and insert a more helpful one.

“But I loved that job!” There’s a better one waiting for you.

“But I love him/her!” If he/she had been meant for you, it would have worked out.

“But she said such terrible, hurtful things to me!” Stop choosing to remember them, ’cause now you’re just hurting yourself.

“But I can’t stop thinking about that mistake I made!” Yes. You can.

For everything in the past that you wish you had done differently, every time you hear yourself start to go there, bring yourself back to the present moment. Remind yourself that unless you’ve got a time machine, you can’t go back and make another decision.

I mean, at the time of this writing, Margaret Mitchell’s been dead for nearly 75 years. Even if she were still breathing, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t rewrite her Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel and change the ending for me. (Side note: Gone With the Wind was the only novel she wrote. Talk about hitting it out of the park on your first swing of the bat!)

And if you think you need an apology from someone in order to move on or if you’re having a hard time with forgiveness, here’s some info on what it is — and what it isn’t: When Forgiving Seems Impossible

At the end of the day, letting go is simply about repeatedly making the choice to leave the past where it lies and refocusing your attention on what is. What IS in this moment. Right here, right now. Not what was. Not what you wish it had been. Not what you want it to be. Not what it could have been or might have been or should have been.

The Rolling Stones summed it up quite nicely when they told us we can’t always get what we want. They were right.

Some things are meant for you. Others are Not. Torturing yourself by clinging to The Ones That Are Not because you fear a life without them will only make that life a living hell.

Why would you choose that?

Say goodbye to the past. Say goodbye to the job, the love, the home, the “stuff.” Whatever it is that isn’t or wasn’t meant for you.

Accept what is. And be willing to dismiss all thoughts to the contrary, one at a time as they pop into your mind, and insert a positive, helpful, forward-looking one instead.

The more often you do this, the sooner you will have let go of your attachment — the true source of suffering, as the Buddha taught.

That Buddha. He was one smart cookie.

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