The Lost Nuance of Letting Go
Fall says, let go of what no longer serves you...
'Let Go' says the whipping wind to the rainbow colored leaves on the trees.
'Let Go' says the rainbow leaf to the slender-necked stem.
I'm letting go!, says the slender stem as millimeter by millimeter its grip is pried from the branch.
With the steel-bending force brought by the blustery water-soaked autumn winds-of-change.
Soon enough the leaf rests.
Soon enough the stem rests.
Both on the ground.
Returned to compost with the earth.
For they,
Let Go
Let Go of what's no longer serving you...
Says the fall—and says nearly every other post on my IG feed on this auspicious partial new moon solar eclipse in Scorpio.
I say, buckle up, because we're about go on a ride together, of course only if you want.
For countless years i experienced a particularly uncomfortable and often existentially dreadful somatic experience that happened when i would read these words; Let Go.
To let go is to change and change was terrifying. Letting go of relationships, jobs, living situations; letting go of safety, security, comfort, familiarity.
'Let Go of what no longer serves you' was like a power statement that instantly activated every primal fear and could shatter the stability of my psyche at any moment...again and again...every facet of my identity or life circumstances were at risk of being taken from me, because they could potentially no longer serve me.
What would remain if anything could potentially no longer serve me? Other than the void of absolute nothingness; distilled and concentrated existentiality.
This is a place i'm quite familiar with, though a terrain which comes with various degrees of discomfort, often requiring titration so as not to pop the circuit breaker of my psyche, if you know what i mean.
Letting go equated to loss, loss to grief, and grief, well grief is a foreign landscape for most westerners.
To be clear, I am in good relationship with grief, experience grief quite regularly and grief is a major ingredient of my life, my journey, and my relationship to the cycles and rhythm of nature—and it took a lot to get here.
Until recently this 'Let Go experience' dredged up some felt-sense cocktail of intensity, panic, anxiety, fear, aversion—an 'ahh, fuck' sort of sentiment and a certain patterning of contraction, constriction, and cringing of my body; a sense of urgency and acceleration of my natural pacing and rhythm; a bracing and defensive orientation to threat.
The threat of change, the threat of losing, through letting go, of the people and things, including my identity that i so deeply loved and gripped on to.
Contemplating and exploring my own experience around these seemingly magical feeling-stirring words, in this particular phase of time, is what inspired me to sit and write this article and transmit this earth medicine. In writing this i have received the very medicine i needed, from the earth that i and we are; the medicine born thru the alchemy of c0-creation.
So, let's start here.
To let go isn't necessarily to disregard or to throw something away, though certainly you may do either of these things with what you let go of.
To let go is defined as to relinquish one's grip to someone or something.
This of course begs the question,
To whom or what are you gripping to?
Asking this particular question is dangerous, for it can transport us almost immediately into the deepest and darkest soil of our personal—and the collective—unconscious, which is exactly what fall is for (and eclipses), right?
Imagine all the hands you’ve shook in your life? Or hugs you've given and received.
No one hug, handshake, or grip the same.
You have your unique grip.
I have my unique grip.
And your grip is further unique relative to what you are gripping—a signature if you will, unique to the 'thing' you are gripping.
There's a palpable difference—if you look for it and notice—between the signature (and associated somatic structures we'll call them) of how you grip your favorite ceramic mug compared to a generic mug from a box store.
There's a palpable difference to how you grip something you don't really like doing as compared to say the grip to something you enjoy and look forward to doing.
Gripping is relational – it's as much about you as it is about that which you are gripping to.
'Thing' in quotation marks...
Because that which is being gripped can be contextualized through an objective or subjective lens of reality.
In western disposable/earth-exploitive objective culture people 'let go' of everything and anything, often independent of the context of relationship to the thing.
What determines if something is or isn't serving any longer is quite flimsy; mostly (un)rooted in preference; likes and dislikes; fleeting fads and trends, and the like.
I grew up in an upper middle-class suburb of Long Island, New York. During a certain phase of my teenage years, every week my dad and i would drive around the neighborhood the night before trash pickup, scoping out people's garbage.
If him or i saw something interesting we would pull over, leave the car running and jump out to scope the item before someone figured out what we were doing and called the police, which happened on several occasions.
I can vividly recall the wonder and excitement of finding a treasure that either of us wanted and the fun we had in loading it up into his Caprice Classic station wagon and speeding off to dunkin donuts to celebrate. Each week we found treasures; items often in like new, if not seemingly brand new condition...
"One man's trash another man's treasure son."
I once found the most beautiful regal antique velour chair which looked like it was from an olde english castle. Someone's so called trash became a treasured chair to me, which i would later use for many years as my 'meditation chair' before i passed it along to a friend.
Apparently this chair (and other trash) was worthy of 'letting go' as clearly it wasn't serving those people any more, even though this and other objects were still inherently valuable, that is if you assess value on utility, which isn't a universal value.
Yet, what is interesting to note is that in the context of western society, it may actually be the lack of grip that makes throwing something away so effortless.
Throwing away a bookcase from Ikea is much easier than is throwing away my great-grandmother's oak book case, the one where she kept the books she would read to me when i visited her as a child.
One fosters grip while the other almost engineers out grip. Yet, still this is conditional on whether one values story and history.
For me personally, i tend to grip to the object that comes wrapped in story; that story is what gives value, or rather adds to the value, independent of utility. Utility for me is secondary to the story. Though maybe utility + story equates to an even more exciting object.
As an example, i lived in Israel from June to December of 2006 and brought no winter clothes with me, for in my ignorance i thought Israel was warm all year round. My best friend Tuvia saw that i was cold one October evening and without saying a thing, threw me his beat up army jacket; the one he hadn't worn in years, but was the one he wore for several years during his service.
He saw my joy when i put it on (it fit perfect and was comfortable and warm and pretty stylish) and without hesitation told me i could keep it. Tuvia's jacket came wrapped in many stories, literally and figuratively, which he shared with me the coming weeks—and it provided utility; it kept me warm. I cherished that jacket for years afterwards, for these reasons.
Yet, some have no problem clearing into a dumpster, the objects from the home of a recently deceased family member (those with and without utility). So then, it seems, it's not even about the object, or utility, or story or even the relationship to who the object belonged to.
If it's not about those, then what is it about?
I suppose maybe the value or depth of the relationship.
Though one can value a relationship and also let go of the object for objects are 'just objects' nothing more, nothing less—simply things. Maybe this is point and the marker of western objective culture; empty matter, newtonian in nature.
Empty of meaning, empty of stories, empty of memories, empty of value, empty.
Just a
matter of fact
object.
a thing.
So, while the disposability of a thing may be informed by utility, story, the lineage of the object, history, relationship and depth of connection, etc, these qualities do not necessarily determine whether one values the object enough to keep it; to grip to it or to let it go and toss it.
So, why do we grip to what we do/don't grip to? I'll unpack this more below.
The point here is that in western disposable culture to 'Let Go' and to let go of what's no longer serves is to let go of some thing; an object inclusive of people/relationships, which too are objects in objective reality.
The teapot, the toaster, the house, the job (a thing someone doesn't like), the relationship (also a thing someone may not like), and of course people; one's distant and closed off partner (whom they've stopped loving, even liking), a friend who forgot to send you a text on your birthday, the sibling whom you may be in long standing conflict with, the unfriendly neighbor who won't mow your shared section of lawn, the mechanic who ripped you off, the bitchy waitress, etc.
Fuck em all, just let go of the relationship.
Throw it out.
There's something better elsewhere.
This is the realm of objectivity and is a hallmark of western society.
Note: To dive deeper into this subject, in true scorpio style, i invite you to check out the trailer to this extraordinary documentary, 306 Hollywood.
Time for a breath.
together let's inhale – and exhale.
...and a check-in: what if anything would make your time reading this more enjoyable or comfortable? Maybe a break? A stretch? ...what?
Yeah, do that.
Onwards we go.
Fortunately there is another realm, that of subjectivity.
One could for example let go of their attachment to the teapot.
Their preference for white appliances over black appliances.
The fear of facing what frightens them.
The need to play tit for tat.
The story about why they think they didn't call you.
One's aversion to conflict or difficult conversations.
One's desire for a single story ranch style home.
One's prioritization of one value over another value.
One's way of hiding out in social situations.
One's judgement of another's choice.
It could also be things like,
Letting go of putting everyone's needs before yours.
Letting go of not speaking up for yourself.
Letting go of social contexts that aren't actually enjoyable
Letting go of denying your feelings.
Letting go of not giving yourself what you want – like dessert.
Letting go of not listening to your intuition.
[insert countless examples]...
...if any of such things are 'no longer serving'...which I'll also dissect shortly.
So, here's what i'm seeing as i distill what i've shared thus far.
In objective reality more specifically objective western-culture; to let go is to relinquish someone or something, typically to the trash though not always as is the case with donating or gifting.
In subjective reality, it is to relinquish one's grip to someone or something, though that something may not necessarily be disposable per-say; as in a disposable object that can be put out to the trash, inclusive of people and relationships, which people throw away all the time in western culture.
Though subjective things can be offered; offered to a sacred fire for example, offered to the earth, offered to our benevolent ancestors, etc; which is quite different than disposing of, donating, gifting, or throwing away.
Let's Keep Going with The Let Go...
To let go is to relinquish one's grip to someone or something.
The grip to the thing; whether that thing is an object or a subject.
Your grip may be like a bear hug—ging a dear friend you haven't see in years.
Or it may be so faint its nearly imperceptible even to you, like an ever so gentle tickling summer breeze over your warm glistening skin.
Theres no good or bad.
Right or wrong.
Better or less than
Grip.
Theres just your grip,
Unique to you.
And the seen/unseen and known/unknown somatic structures that make your grip yours...and the infinite variations of structures in-formed by what you're gripping to.
To grip is natural.
I recently had a session with one of my go to somatic practitioners (she's also a dear cheerleader of mine) and a highly trained and experienced practitioner who assists at Peter Levine's Retreats. We were discussing infant developmental gestures; pointing, waving, raising arms, wiggling, moving towards & away, etc.
Children grab, grip, grasp, "claw" at; these are very natural and important gestures that are necessary for healthy development. Without the opportunity to discover, explore, and express these gestures, serious repercussions result.
Aye, there's much that could be said here. Suffice to say our grip, seen purely through the lens as a developmental gesture, has origins in our earliest of days.
To learn some more about this subject and more generally developmental psychology check out Bruce Perry's book, The Boy Who was Raised as a Dog.
In the context of 'Let Go' and to 'Let go of what no longer serves you' there's very important questions that i've found myself asking recently.
I'm wondering how one discerns if the grip is supporting development or hindering development?
When am i gripping too hard or too softly and what informs me either to be the case?
It's important also to acknowledge, because someone somewhere will certainly benefit from hearing this.
Just because you're gripping doesn't mean you need to or have to let go—though it's easy to come to that conclusion when one is embedded in an objective 'throw away' western culture as most of us are at this point.
Maybe you're tired and want to let go, but don't know how or simply can't.
Where is the source of your grip?
Maybe it is your grip, but it's a grip that's no longer relevant...a grip that once served, but is the wrong tool for the current situation in your hand.
What part of you is gripping?
…and what are you getting from the relationship to what you are gripping?
Is it serving or supporting you?
Is it love or is it fear? ...or something else?
Either way, how do you know?
How to let go?
…and how does one determine when to let go?
Does the body let go or is it the mind that let's go?
Does a child think their way to letting go of a toy?
Does one who is aging think their way to letting go of their youth?
Is thought a necessary part of letting go?
Is there anything to even figure out?
What if the grip isn't even your grip, but you've been living as if it is?
Maybe how you grip friendship is similar to how you grip your work; very lightly whereas your grip to your partner resembles the grip to your favorite toy as a child.
Does the grip resemble the grip impressed upon you when your father wrapped his hand around yours and showed you how to use a hammer for the first time?
What if it's the grip you inherited from an ancestor who lived through a war and your grip is their grip for life during many months of near starvation?
What if 'your grip' is the grip a pregnant mother had to a man who didn't want to be a father?
What if the grip is the grip of a blastocyst to a uterine wall that could just barely support life, this life, the life one of the ones whose reading this article?
For some they've been gripping for life since before they were in part an egg in their mother's ovary in their grandmother's womb.
Mmmm, let's pause here and take some breaths.
Obviously there are as many examples are there are grains of sand on a beach, yet these are the ones that came through while writing this piece.
For some releasing grip is effortless action, independent of what one is relinquishing their grip to. For others its effortful; requires force, even manual manipulation and assistance.
What if instead of making it about 'the someone or something' one is gripping to—the object of one's grip—we shifted our focus to the grip itself and focused on the mechanics and dynamics and associated structures of your unique grip.
What if it the source of conflict is not in the thing, but in your grip?
What if your grip is numbing, or tiring, or painful?
Wouldn't it make sense then to change your grip? ...to one that feels better, is more comfortable, or more supportive?
What if you didn't need to 'let go' to do that? ...rather you just needed to shift?
...in service to allowing space for a new grip to emerge, one that is more supportive to what you're needing in this emergent moment.
One which allows with little to no effort, a natural release, a shedding of sorts...or one that even allows for a tightening of grip where necessary.
Cause you know, sometimes when you're cuddling you just need to adjust or shift positions rather than let go.
Sometimes firmness is desired, other times a softening; neither necessarily mean one needs to 'let go' of the someone or something.
Rather what is needed is a letting go of the grip that was, so as to allow space for the grip that wants to be; the for the grip that feels better.
If each grip is unique than each release is as well…
You may begin with your uncurling your pinky finger, i may begin with a raising of my eyebrow and then a pressing of my left heel into the ground.
You may yawn or twitch an eye, i may feel anger as i imagine the grip i’m about to loosen and then deep sadness "for no reason".
You may go into a story about why you can't let go and then feel anger and then without effort watch as your grip loosens until it starts feeling to good and something, beyond your control, stops you.
I may begin to loosen my grip effortlessly and then hit an edge; jaw tightens, stomach knots up, discomfort and the hand closes again; it's just more comfortable.
Maybe shame.
Tears.
Grief.
Sorrow.
...or joy and expansion and a big high five to life.
How you release your grip, the release sequence, is unique to you and to what you're gripping to.
Let go….and let go of what's no longer serving you...
Notice what happens when you read these words?
What sensations do you notice in your body?
What feelings/emotions arise for you?
Maybe you make an audible sound or your spine stiffens; just notice.
In my experience, both personally and with those i've supported, letting go is discovery process inclusive of both body and mind. Letting go, doesn't just happen the way you flip a light switch, but requires a certain degree of contemplation, self-inquiry, observation, neutrality, and presence to go on the journey.
In my own journey with learning how i let go, what i've discovered is that it's a process rather than an action. This process is nuanced, complex, relational and requires the skills to navigate one's own circuitry inclusive of the the circuitry of relating, aka, attachment and bonding.
As an example, i would estimate that it took me 2.5 years to relinquish my grip to my job as an engineer. I worked at that job for 3 years and approximately 84% of my time there i was actively engaging with letting go of the job i knew i didn't want to be at anymore.
Why so long?
Many reasons, but the point is that it took me 2.5 years to go through the release sequence to get to the point where I could actually take the action of letting go; of quitting. It didn't happen the first time i thought about letting go, it happened after years of obsessive thinking about letting go.
If you'd like to read more about that specific journey and my release process check out the section titled, "Problems and Passages" on this page of my website, though if you read the entire page you'll have more of a setup of context for why 2.5 years.
It was that unique release process from my engineering career (almost 13 years ago) which was a MAJOR life turning point and hallmark event for informing the creation of my practice, Somatic Solutions.
Spoiler Alert (skip this blurb, or not, if you plan to read above)
My entire identity was built around being an engineer and that took years to dismantle, so that i could quit. The associated internal structures and scaffolding around safety, security, survival, identity, etc, were things i needed to address.
It took time, diligence, and effort to build the structures required to hold the courage that would allow for me to even consider and then choose to die to who i was in service to who i knew i could become...ultimately the one writing this article, right now.
Bless that younger me for so diligently applying himself to let go of the career and life path he knew was not for him.
It takes time, patience, and devotion to go through the dismantling and associated release sequence so that we even have the choice to release the structures holding us to what we're gripping to.
...and yes, holding us, as in despite what we may say we want, know we want, feel the desire for, we may be held, for reasons beyond our conscious awareness to things that we believe we are ready to let go of.
What i've noticed is that there's a certain inner coherence that is required for the action to happen, a coherence that simply isn't there if the action of release hasn't yet occurred.
What if your mind and your heart wants to let go, but your hands don't?
What if your mind and heart are ready to jump into the cold river, but your body isn't? Last week i wrote and shared a poetic exploration of this very question.
What then?
What if you want to let go, but simply don't have the tools or the know how or notice yourself holding onto?
Well here it is, maybe this is the nugget of this entire piece.
If you're having trouble, difficultly, making contact with challenges and struggle, overwhelm and other intense feelings regarding letting go of whatever; please know absolutely nothing is wrong with you.
You are not broken because you struggle to let go...or have a complex and nuanced experience regarding letting go.
So, here's my suggestion, I'd start with raising a middle finger to all those who make it sound so fucking easy. Cause in my experience it's just not and someone needs to say that. It can take years to relinquish one's grip and let go; it's a process, more accurately a journey and for those who lean in to it, a life ceremony.
Letting Go is profoundly nuanced and this fact needs to be acknowledged in service to normalizing the difficulty that's often wrapped up in one's grip to whatever.
Yup, go ahead, raise that finger now; I am.
If it feels good an audible "Fuck You!"
...here in this moment, you are invited to let go of that shame, it's not yours and you don't need to carry it anymore. Nothing is wrong with you.
Give it back to where it belongs, if you don't know where that is, or how to do that, imagine offering it to a sacred fire in your mind's eye and watch it burn.
Or if available, you can take a pile of fall leaves and imagine giving the shame to those leaves. Go outside and leave them with the earth and rest into knowing that the shame will be composted by the earth.
Nothing is wrong with you because letting go is process for you, rather than an instantaneously available action; as easy as a click of the mouse.
Let yourself feel that...
What do you feel?
Hopefully some self-acceptance, relief, ease, validation, peace, etc.
Hopefully some deeper felt-sense of self-love for being exactly who you are and where you are in your journey and in relationship to the 'someone's and something's' you're actively engaging to let go of, even if that means dis-engaging from such activity.
Letting go a life-process and it takes time...and how long it takes is truly a mystery. You can only know how long release took, once you've released your grip.
...and some things, like ripe apples and pears, simply release their grip from the tree when it's their time...some things let go, without any effort, for nature is cyclical and like fruit and leaves drop in just the right moment.
Nothing to do, other than to be, to be with, and to notice; though doing so may in fact require effort. This may be one of the many paradoxes you encounter and sort out on the journey of ripening; nothing to do but everything to do to do nothing.
Be gentle with yourself...and notice who or what you're gripping to...
What do you notice?
...and now?
What do you notice?
Keep noticing.
When i realize, through embodied discovery, that sometimes it's not the thing i thought i need to let go of (which resulted in the dread, fear, anxiety, panic, existential terror, etc) and instead realize it's in renegotiating my grip to the thing—and the unseen but very real structures that support a grip that's not necessarily serving me any longer—I then feel more empowered to effect change in the areas of my life needing tending.
...and that change happens naturally as new structures emerge which extend a new grip to the various things i am in relation with. That grip may be a surprisingly firmer or a new and light energetic hold from a comfortable distance.
Finally, in service to transparency, 'releasing' this article is an act of letting go for me. I let it go and let go of the fault finding stories; judgement about quality, technical accuracy, grammar, organization, structure; i let go of the desire (and impulse) to continue to refine, perfect, revise, and tweak...i watch and notice the fear of the impact due to any errors/inconsistencies in what i've written—and i'm choosing to practice letting go in service to letting this medicine 'drop from the tree' when it wants to, not when i think it's ready.
It's perfectly imperfect. It is, just as it is; unique, like my grip.
Even my process for writing this is palpably different than what i wrote last week and rather than judge that, i simply notice and continue onwards.
My heartfelt prayer is that this supports those who are feeling any panic, anxiety, fear, terror, stress, worry, etc which can and does get stirred up during fall (especially scorpio season) and during potent astrological aspects, like today on this partial new moon solar eclipse in scorpio.
I've chosen to release this, despite what i notice to be judgement in doing so, for this is what life is asking of me to be in harmony and coherence with the rhythm of this fall time (and this eclipse season) relative to my relationship to my own evolutionary journey through this season of my life.
And for this reason, the medicine contained herein is alive and activated, rooted in the cycles and rhythm of nature...it is attuned and coherent; i listen—and this is the organic emergent response to the whispering soul song of this moment in time.
In this way i am the fall who says, let go of what no longer serves you...
I am the whipping wind who says to the rainbow colored leaves, let go.
I am the slender-necked stem holding on for dear life to the bending branch.
I am the blustery water-soaked autumn winds-of-change washing over and cleansing all that no longer serves.
I let go and I am letting go.
Now i too rest,
on the ground
with my brothers
and sisters
the rainbow leaves.
Together we compost.
For
we
Let Go.
And so it is.
Aho.
This article was received, written, and edited over the course of several days on the ancestral homelands of the Nooksack People and the Lummi Nation in the northwest corner of the pacific northwest.
In closing,
Please take what resonates as true and as the saying goes, leave the rest—or in this case let go of what's not for you :) Receiving what's for you could be as simple as sitting with one line or one point that really hit a chord or just stewing and simmering right here.
To that end, I invite you to take some time now to self-care in service to integration. Lay down with your eyes closed, relax, go for a walk, eat, burn some aromatic plants, make sounds, move your body, consider journaling; here's three prompts:
1. What's present for you in this moment, after reading this article?
2. What here resonated with your life experience and relationship to the words "Let Go"? ....what didn't?
3. The medicine for me was...
- If you feel like you could benefit from receiving support in any facet of your 'letting go' process, in service to moving more smoothly through this passage of your life, i invite you to book a free connection call with me.
- I'd love to know how you were impacted by this article and welcome your reflections, please leave a comment below.
- Finally, I would appreciate if you shared this article; you should see share buttons on the left if you're on desktop or below on mobile.
Blessed autumn to you,
Kenneth
Contact:
ken@kenfried.me