If you let go a little, you will have a little peace; if you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace; if you let go completely, you will have complete peace.
— Ajahn Chah
Everyone tells us to let go. Almost nobody tells us how. For me, learning about letting go with self-compassion has changed what I thought letting go actually meant.
My dad had his own version of this advice.
“Let it go, Louie,” he would tell my mom whenever something irritating or unfair came up. A parking ticket, a clogged toilet, a conflict with a friend that didn’t deserve the energy it was getting.
It was his way of saying: don’t sweat the small stuff; come back to what matters. In a lot of ways, it’s great advice. My dad and Ajahn Chah were both pointing at the same truth:
Freedom lives on the other side of letting go.
But how do you actually get there? How to let go in a way that brings the peace everyone keeps promising?
Figuring that out has been a journey for me.
How to Let Go Without Pushing the Pain Away
For years, I thought I knew how to let go. I’d get busy, be active, go for a run, grab a beer with a friend. I’d throw myself into work and other people’s stories until I forgot my own. I’d distract myself from the pain instead of feeling it.
It worked. At least for a while.
But I’ve realized that’s not letting go. That’s moving on without actually moving through. It’s storing and ignoring—shoving the hurt into a box somewhere inside myself and hoping it dissolves on its own.
It doesn’t.
Pain doesn’t simply disappear because we decide not to feel it. It waits until the box fills up, bursts open, or leaks into our lives some other way.
That became painfully obvious on my recent backpacking trip through the Desolation Wilderness.
The day before I left, another conflict with my daughter’s father left me feeling trapped and deeply wronged. One of his familiar moves forced me into paying for something with no real way to contest it. I did what I could, sent the emails I needed to send, and walked into the backcountry knowing it would still be unresolved when I got back.
It should have been the perfect opportunity to let it go.
Instead, I carried it with me.
The mountains were spectacular: granite cliffs, pristine alpine lakes, waterfalls, the shock of cold water on my skin, dinner overlooking miles of wilderness. It was everything my nervous system had been craving.
And still, my mind kept dragging me back to the same story.
This isn’t fair. How could he do this?
And then…
Why am I letting this ruin such a beautiful trip?
I tried everything. Walking meditation—right foot, left foot, lift, step. My favorite mantras. Every mindfulness practice I knew to bring myself back into the present moment.
Be here now.
Trust. Let go. Stay open.
Even a healthy dose of magic mushrooms one afternoon bought me about four hours of relief before the thoughts came rushing back.
Looking back, I noticed something: every “letting go” strategy I reached for had the same hidden agenda.
I wasn’t trying to be with my pain.
I was beginning to realize that letting go with self-compassion might require the exact opposite: allowing the feeling to stay long enough to be heard.
I was trying to get rid of it.
Every mantra, every meditation, every distraction was, in its own way, asking my feelings to leave before they were ready.
What I Was Really Holding Onto
Finally, exhausted from fighting my own mind, I remembered another way of working with difficult thoughts. I took the thought causing me the most pain into Byron Katie’s The Work.
He is abusing me.
Then I turned it around.
I am abusing myself.
Bam.
That was it.
The words landed in my body before my mind caught up. Of course. No one was doing anything to me as I wandered those trails. The person talking to me all day long was me, and she wasn’t kind.
And once I heard her, I started noticing the soundtrack running underneath everything:
I should have texted my friend the day of her surgery.
I should have spent more time with Hazel before she died.
I shouldn’t have said that stupid thing that time.
I didn’t need to buy that expensive necklace.
I’m behind on QuickBooks.
My website needs work…
Underneath all of it was the same message:
Do better. Try harder.
The conflict I’d brought into the wilderness hadn’t created that voice. It had simply illuminated one that had been with me all along.
I am abusing myself.
It stung because it was true.
So instead of trying harder to make the thoughts disappear, I reached for another tool: dialoguing with what Liz Gilbert calls the spirit of unconditional love, the way she does in her Letters from Love.
Dear Love, what would you have me know today? I asked in my journal.
And she reminded me:
Dear Sweet Kelsey, please…look at your abundant, magical life. Again and again, you’ve believed everything was falling apart, only to discover later that the Universe was quietly arranging something better than you could have imagined. Remember the two weekends his interference accidentally freed up, and how they became the exact weekends when your relationship with Clem had the chance to take root?
This struggle is happening for you, not to you. You don’t have to control this or do anything more. You can’t. You’re already held. It’s only money; there will be more…
As I continued to write from that voice of Love, something softened.
My breath slowed. My chest loosened.
For the first time all week, I wasn’t trying to force myself to let go.I simply felt held.
Only then could I actually “let it go, Louie.”
Letting Go With Self-Compassion
I’ve changed the phrase now. I don’t think the instruction is simply “let it go.”
I think it’s: love it…and then let it go.
Since then, I’ve wondered whether everything I thought I knew about how to let go was almost exactly opposite to what actually works. I don’t think we let go by shaming ourselves, distracting ourselves, or forcing ourselves to think positively.
Maybe self-compassion is part of what makes true letting go possible.
I think we let go when the frightened part of us finally feels safe enough to unclench.
The scared little girl inside me didn’t want to be ignored or pushed down. She wasn’t asking for better advice.
This is what letting go with self-compassion has started to mean for me—not abandoning the frightened parts of myself, but staying with them until they feel safe enough to loosen their grip.
She was asking not to be left alone with her fear.
Once she felt seen, heard, and understood, there was nothing left to grip.
This is also what I continue to learn through Slow Power: sometimes the most powerful thing we can do isn’t push harder or figure everything out. It’s slow down enough to hear what is asking for our attention.
Ajahn Chah was right. My dad was right. There’s real peace on the other side of letting go.
But maybe it doesn’t begin with letting go.
Maybe it begins by holding what hurts with enough love that it no longer needs to hold on to you.
Be with the pain.
Hold it in your hands.
Allow it to be there.
Investigate it.
Love it.
And it will let you go.
Ready to Try a Different Way?
If this resonates—if you’re tired of trying to think, push, or self-discipline your way out of what hurts—this is at the heart of the work I do through Slow Power and life coaching for women.
Together, we create space to slow down, listen inward, and meet the parts of ourselves asking for attention with more self-compassion and less force.
If you’re ready to explore what you’re ready to shift, change, or heal, I’d love to connect.
Email me at [email protected] or reach out here to set up an introductory consultation.