What is really to Let Go?

We’re about to enter Passover, the holiday of freedom. Maybe it’s a good time to ask what freedom actually is, what we’re trying to be free from, and how letting go really happens. When we get stuck in an emotional loop, like when someone hurt us and we can’t let it go, or we lost money and it just keeps running in our head, what people usually say is: just let it go, bro. Let go and move on.

The thing that gets a lot of people stuck isn’t that they don’t understand they need to let go of what they’re carrying. That part is obvious. No one actually wants to keep carrying unnecessary suffering. But the mistake is thinking that letting go is something you can just do. Like it’s an action. Like taking out the trash. There’s a bad smell in the house, you take the trash out, and everything is fine.

If it was really that simple, why are we still holding on to things that hurt us. Why don’t we just drop it and move on. When we’re stuck in something, it’s clear we want out. No one wants to stay in a place that’s uncomfortable, painful, and doesn’t give any rest.

Usually what happens is we move into one of three directions. The first is escape. I don’t feel good, so I’ll do something else to feel something else. Phone, computer, food, everyone has their version. It might give some relief for a moment, but it doesn’t really solve anything. Most of the time it just makes things more complicated, because what we didn’t meet comes back with more force.

The second is feeding it. Something is running in our head, and we just go with it wherever it takes us. If it’s anger, we keep playing out thoughts of anger or revenge. It’s like adding fuel to a fire. It started small, and if we keep going, the whole house burns.

And then there’s the third option, fighting it. Trying to force ourselves to stop feeling what we’re feeling. But here too, like the other two, it usually just gets stronger. You can almost see it as a rule, when we fight what’s happening inside us, we usually end up more tangled.

The holding continues as long as something in us is still holding on to the experience.

And this is the part that’s less intuitive.

The only thing that actually works is not trying to let go, but taking a step back and letting it be exactly as it is. Without trying to fix it, without trying to move it, without trying to manage it. This place, what some traditions call the middle way, is where things actually start to release.

You stay with the experience as it is. Not escaping, not feeding, not fighting. Just knowing it. In the end it’s sensations in the body and thoughts in the mind. And when we see it from that place, like in a meditative process, a lot of the time something starts to fade on its own. What was painful begins to lose its grip, and there’s more clarity about how to move forward.

Letting go is not really an action. It’s the result of certain conditions.

And for those conditions to happen, there has to be a willingness to meet what’s there. Even if it’s not pleasant. To stop escaping, stop looking for someone to blame outside, and stay with the experience. It’s not always comfortable. Sometimes it even hurts.

The ego doesn’t like that. It meets us with weakness, with discomfort, with the fact that we’re not as in control as we thought.

But that’s exactly where real release begins.