Ektaya“Just let it go.” Maybe someone has told you that, and you've probably noticed that hearing it isn't enough to do it.
Letting go means no longer spending your energy holding on to what isn't up to you: someone's reaction, the outcome of a situation, a thought that keeps looping. You keep acting where you can act, and you stop clenching your fists around the rest. Here are two concrete ways to practice: a short guided meditation that works through the body, then a writing exercise to look a worry in the eye.
What letting go means
The idea is an old one. The Enchiridion, which gathers the teaching of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, opens with a distinction between what is up to us (our judgments, our desires, our actions) and what is not (our body, our possessions, our reputation). It's still a good starting point: before you let go of anything, look at what you're holding and whether you really have a grip on it.
Letting go doesn't mean the situation no longer matters to you. You can care about someone, hope a project works out, dread a medical appointment, and still stop replaying the movie of everything that could go wrong. What changes is how much energy you keep spending there.
Why telling yourself to let go doesn't work
When something worries you, your mind tries to protect you by circling the problem. It replays the conversation, looks for the right answer, anticipates scenarios. Telling yourself “stop thinking about it” often means thinking about it even more, because you have to keep the thought in mind to check that it's gone.
The body follows the same pattern. A worry that lasts often settles somewhere: a clenched jaw, raised shoulders, a knot in your stomach, hands tight around your phone. That's why the meditation below starts with the body. Relaxing a muscle is something you already know how to do, and it gives your mind a concrete picture of what “letting go” means.
A guided meditation for letting go
Read the exercise once or twice, then do it with your eyes closed, at your own pace. Plan on about ten minutes. If you prefer, you can record yourself reading the steps slowly and listen back to your own voice.
The gesture of closing and opening your fists is inspired by progressive relaxation, a method the American physician Edmund Jacobson described in his book Progressive Relaxation, published in 1929: tensing a muscle for a few seconds makes it easier to feel it release.
- Get settled. Sit with your back straight but not stiff, feet flat on the floor, hands resting on your thighs, palms down. Close your eyes.
- Lengthen your exhales a little. For a few breaths, inhale normally through your nose, letting your belly expand, then exhale through your mouth, a little longer than the inhale, without forcing.
- Close your fists. As you inhale, gently squeeze your fists, without straining, and keep them closed for three or four seconds. As you exhale, open your hands and turn them over, palms up. Do this three times, noticing the difference between the hand that grips and the hand that opens.
- Scan your body. Bring your attention to your jaw and let it loosen as you exhale, teeth slightly apart. Then your shoulders, which you let drop. Then your belly, which you let soften instead of holding it in.
- Think of what's on your mind. Let the situation that's occupying you right now come up, without going into the details. Gently close your fists again as you inhale, as if you were holding it. As you exhale, open your hands. You're not throwing anything away and you're not solving anything: you're just not gripping for this moment. If a phrase helps, say silently to yourself, “I don't need to hold this right now.”
- Stay with your hands open. Breathe calmly for a few minutes. Thoughts will come back, and that's normal. Each time you notice, let them pass like street noise behind a window, and bring your attention back to the feel of the air on your palms.
- Come back gently. Move your fingers, then your feet, and open your eyes. Before you get up, write down a word or a sentence about what you noticed, even if it's “nothing special.”
Sometimes a session changes nothing about how you feel, and another one calms you more. It's by repeating it that the gesture becomes familiar, to the point where you can open your hands discreetly in the middle of the day, in a meeting or on the subway.
A writing exercise: following the scenario to the end
When a worry keeps spinning, it rarely makes it to the end of the story. It replays the frightening part on a loop. Writing forces you to go past that point and see what you would actually do. Take a sheet of paper or a notebook and set aside fifteen minutes.
- Choose one situation. Just one, the one that comes back most often in your head right now.
- Write what you fear, all the way through. For five minutes, write what could happen, without censoring yourself and without polishing your style. After each sentence, ask yourself “and then what?” and write what comes next.
- Answer your own scenario. Read it back, then write: if this really happened, what would my first move be? Who could I talk to? What have I already been through that's similar, and how did I get through it?
- Sort what's left. Finish with two lines: one thing you can do this week about this situation, and what, for now, isn't up to you.
The goal is to see the rest of the story, not to prove to yourself that everything will be fine. As you write, you often realize you have more resources than the worry let you see, and that what isn't up to you can wait without you watching it all the time. If the exercise brings up an emotion that's too strong, stop, put the paper down, and come back to your breathing.
A few precautions
These practices are wellbeing exercises. If a worry has kept you from sleeping, eating, or working for several weeks, or if you're going through a very hard time, talk to your doctor or a mental health professional. Letting go doesn't mean carrying alone what is too heavy. If you feel dizzy or uncomfortable during the breathing or while squeezing your fists, return to normal breathing and stop. If you have a heart or breathing condition, ask your doctor first.
Take it further with a program
Letting go often starts with looking at what you're carrying. In Inner Renaissance, the third week is devoted to this: what you carry, the thoughts that hold you back, what you choose and what you simply endure. The fifth week works on accepting what you can't control, with writing exercises and a guided meditation.
Five weeks to look at what you carry and decide what you keep or leave behind. Explore Inner Renaissance