When I look back today at situations in which I have let something go, I notice that the actual moment of letting go was rarely the most difficult part for me. What usually lasted much longer was the time before it. That phase in which something still felt open, at least in my perception. As long as I had the feeling that a situation might still change, that a conversation might shift something or that a development was not yet complete, I did not want to make a premature decision. I was not necessarily holding on because I was afraid of the ending. Often, I was holding on because I was not yet convinced that everything had truly been said, seen or experienced.
For a long time, this was an important distinction for me. From the outside, something can look finished long before it feels complete within. I have experienced situations in which other people would probably have said much earlier that there was no point in continuing. Yet something in me was still moving. Not necessarily hope in a romantic sense, but more the sense that something was not yet entirely clear. As long as that feeling remained, I could not simply behave as though the matter were over. I could have made a decision, but it would have moved ahead of my inner state.
Over time, I learned to perceive this difference more clearly. There is a kind of holding on that comes from habit, fear or the wish not to lose something. And there is, for me, another kind of holding on that has more to do with an inner process not yet being complete. From the outside, the two may look very similar. In my own experience, however, they feel different. One makes everything tighter and heavier. The other still carries an open question within it, even if I cannot always put that question into words.
That is why I have never tried to make letting go into a task. The sentence ‘I have to let this go now’ has rarely changed anything for me. If I had not yet reached that point inwardly, it only created additional pressure. I would then notice that I was not only dealing with the situation itself, but also with the idea that I should already have moved on. That did not make anything easier. It simply added another layer against which I had to struggle inwardly.
What helped me far more was noticing what was still holding me there in the first place. Was something genuinely still open, or did I simply not want to accept that nothing more was going to change? Was I waiting for something specific, or holding on to a possibility that existed only in my mind? I did not ask myself these questions as a method. They usually arose naturally during that period. Sometimes while walking, sometimes in the evening when everything became quieter, and sometimes right in the middle of a situation when I suddenly noticed that I kept returning to exactly the same point.
It became especially clear to me whenever I realised that, despite all the inner movement, nothing outside was changing any more. The same thoughts kept returning, the same possibilities were being played through, the same conversations led nowhere new. At some point, a clarity would emerge that did not feel like a dramatic decision. It was much quieter than that. I simply knew that holding on any longer would add nothing. And at precisely that point, letting go suddenly became easy for me.
Once I had truly made that decision, I rarely needed to keep convincing myself of it. It was simply there. I could end something, step back from a situation or accept that a particular path was no longer continuing for me. That did not mean everything immediately became pleasant. Of course, memories could remain and thoughts could return. But the inner resistance was weaker. I no longer had to keep checking whether there was still something I ought to do.
What followed often felt like both a physical and energetic release. My thoughts became quieter, my body less tense, and something that had previously felt bound began to move again. I have often had the sense that when I hold on for a long time, part of my attention remains fixed in one particular place. Even when I am doing something completely different, something continues running in the background. Once the decision has been made, that background process falls away. More space opens again for what is actually in front of me.
Over the years, learning to let go has not meant devaluing something or pretending it never mattered. Some things were important even though they eventually came to an end. Some people, situations or ideas shaped a part of my life without therefore needing to remain forever. When I let something go, I do not erase its meaning. I simply stop binding my present to it.
That thought has helped me to see endings less as the opposite of connection. Something can have mattered deeply to me and still no longer have a place in my life today. I can be grateful for an experience without having to prolong it. I can understand why I held on for so long without judging myself for it. That attitude makes a difference for me because it does not demand that the past and present be set against one another.
Today, I usually notice earlier when I am approaching such a boundary. Not always immediately, but more clearly than I used to. I become aware when I am only going round the same circles inwardly or when more of my energy is flowing into holding on than into the life that is actually happening. Then I do not try to force an immediate decision. I observe instead whether something in the situation is still genuinely alive or whether only my idea of it is continuing.
Sometimes that realisation takes time. I no longer automatically see that as weakness. Some decisions do not become clearer simply because they are made more quickly. For me, certain things took weeks or months before I truly knew that I could let them go. What mattered in the end was not the speed, but the point at which the decision matched what I genuinely felt within.
When that point had been reached, letting go rarely felt like a struggle. It felt more like opening a hand that had been holding something for a long time and finally realising that it no longer needed to hold it. The hand remains the same. What it once held does not disappear from its history. But it becomes free again for whatever it may touch next.