Letting go of things, be that people, expectations, imaginary versions of yourself, is much easier said than done. But as humans we hold onto the patterns, the memories, onto people who once felt safe and onto outcomes we built entire futures around. In fact, we hold onto to them when those things hurt us more often than they comfort us.

Distraction often works, but briefly. You might go to the gym, doom scroll, attempt to throw yourself back into work you know you should be doing but have been procrastinating on, or watch something loud enough that your thoughts can’t be heard. But distraction doesn’t address the root, it just presses pause while the problem waits. 

I’m not a psychologist and by no means writing this from a place of mastery. I’m writing it as someone in the middle of it.

I feel like the thing about “letting go” feels like it’s always written about by people who sound like they’ve already done it. It’s often framed like a switch, a decision, or a clean moment of clarity where you just simply choose peace. But if anything, in the moment, it doesn’t feel anything like that. It feels rather horrible, messy, like withdrawal, like something is being ripped away, like if you loosen your grip, you lose something essential.

People often say “focus on what you can control” as if it’s that’s simple and isolating variables in life is as easy as it is on a problem sheet. There are so many things behind the phrase “let it go.” History, attachment, hope, ego, fear, unprocessed conversations, futures that only existed in your head. Life isn’t a well posed problem. It’s chaos, entropy, with boundary conditions you didn’t choose. You can’t always cleanly separate the controllable from the uncontrollable when the thing you want sits right at that boundary.

It is true that you can control the effort. But the gap between effort and outcome… that’s where frustration lives. And I wish I had something more reassuring to say about that. 

But I don’t. I don’t have a formula for detachment, or a recipe for emotional equilibrium, I don’t know how to make the feeling disappear faster. All I know is that feelings are not facts. They are certainly real, and intense and often convincing, but they are not proof.

One of the reasons I write is because writing is one of the few things that gives me a sense of control. I’ve had difficulty dealing with events that were out of my control, and even more difficulty accepting that the only thing I truly control is whether I process the emotions or suppress them.

Once I publish this post, I can’t really control who reads and what they think of it. But if this post has resonated in the slightest and if you’re ever in the middle of something that feels like it will never ease, remember that it probably won’t feel like this forever, even if your brain insists it will. It will be alright, even if you don’t feel alright about it right now. Think about all the times in the past you’ve struggled and never thought you’ll get through it and you did. Hold onto that. 

Nothing about this is in any way glamorous, or motivational. It’s just honest because I too am just attempting to let go, and for now, that is enough.