Please Stop Telling People To Let It Go.
It’s not practical advice.
Can you count the number of times you’ve been told to “let it go?”.
Go on and count. I’ll wait…
Right?. Exactly!. Plenty fucking times to even count.
(Let it go) is the most frequented response in any emotional or mental ‘how to…?’ or ‘why did that happen?' turmoil.
Even the Buddha encouraged people to let shit go.
Now, you might be thinking I’m hating on the Buddha or the philosophy of letting go.
Quite the opposite.
- I used to practice Buddhism in my early twenties
- I still apply some of the philosophies to this day.
- I am an advocate for letting go.
My only issue lies in the practicality of letting go.
What does letting go truly mean?
To you, it might mean a sense of unbecoming and shedding off old skin.
To some, it might mean being adaptable and open to a new way of thinking.
And to others, it simply means becoming palatable to other people’s appetites because it’s easier that way.
There is no standard way of letting go. Every individual does that in whatever manner suits them best.
Granted —there are situations that warrant letting it slide. Like that embarrassing moment, you had in 2007 and won’t stop thinking about it to this day.
Or that time when you missed a social cue and realized it later. Or…or when you waved back at that person who was waving at someone else entirely. Those moments do not require any form of rumination, just let it go.
However, there are times when the universe decides to test the living fuck out of your human will and psyche. When it comes at you guns blazing.
The moment when you lose a loved one to death or simply relational heartbreak.
When entire people suffer a silent or loud genocide.
When your body endures what it wasn’t set up to endure. When an existential crisis has you by the balls.
When suicide ideation is a comforting form of maladaptive daydreaming. When being a parent is taking everything from you.
It goes on. Those moments multiply themselves over a lifetime. And when people tell you to “let it go”, it sounds and feels like a punishment.
It’s in those moments when you realize that you don’t have a clue what people truly mean when they tell you to let it go.
You’d think there was some switch you could turn on and off. Some automated process erases things but there isn’t which makes that sort of advice impractical.
Yes — you can meditate, breathe, go to therapy, cleanse, exercise and be the healthiest version of yourself.
But…
Some things never leave you. Some things — stay and make a Thanksgiving dinner out of you until they are full and come back for seconds.
Some things make a home out of you and can’t be evicted. You know… those things that alter your entire nervous system. So when someone says to let it go, it sounds insane.
What is the practical version of letting it go?
Time does not heal pain. It transforms it into something else.
So is the concept of letting go. It’s simply a form of transmutation happening. The thing is still there, just in a different form and that’s okay…as long as the transformed thing serves the highest and most sacred version of you.
Instead of telling people to just let it go, let them know how they can transform their pain.
Be honest with them about the nuanced and crooked reality of dealing with life and its complexities.
Tell them the truth. And if you can’t, just listen without judgment and misguided advice. Hug them. Care for them. Reassure them. Tell them you love them.
Tell them anything except to let it go.
Let people grieve. Let people break and rise back up without boxing them into how that should be done. Let them unravel and go mad. Let them feel their rage.
There is no practical lesson or advice that can be taken from “Let it go” because the sentiment in itself is confined to mental gymnastics that alter your perception of reality which in turn positively impacts your life.
This is frustrating advice in and of itself because what the hell man, it shouldn’t have to be that deep to exist on this god forsaken rock we call a planet.
However, it’s the truth…that’s how it is. Life is difficult, grueling, and vulgar at times but it can also be beautiful, delicate, and fun.
There are things that will never go away. And there are things that can go away.
To sum it up from that beautiful quote in Psalm 91:
Grant me the serenity to accept things that I can’t change, courage to change the things that I can. And the wisdom to know the difference.
