‘Let go’ is probably one of the most useless phrases ever. Even more so in therapy. If people could let go, they would already have, they don’t need you to tell them that, they’re smart enough to already know.

Why is it painful to let go? Because what we hold on to, defines us. Often something that hurts us leaves us weaker or less capable of functioning than those around us. It makes us feel inferior, so we try to borrow superiority on the shoulders of our pain/ trauma. So we need that shitty experience to feel good about ourselves, even though that sounds paradoxical – that’s just how the mind works.

Unfortunately, this is where the law of attraction kicks in. It says, ah so trauma makes you feel better about yourself? Here, take some more. So this inability to let go sends a person down a horrible spiral of continuous painful experiences.

Another aspect is, whatever you resist, persists. The more you fight it, the more it stays. If you surrender to the pain and allow yourself to feel it in all its intensity, you’ll find that it dissolves and disappears.

How do we really learn to let go? By not trying to let go at all. It is not possible to let go, because you did feel what you feel and you are forever changed by that unpleasant experience, no matter how trivial. Allow it to hurt. Allow yourself to feel the pain. You know how when a person is drowning, if they stopped resisting they’d float to the surface? Same thing. When you surrender to the pain, it lifts you to the surface. So you can be in the middle of it, but you’ll still be floating on the surface and able to breathe.