Why “Letting Go” Is The Worst Thing You Can Do To Heal Emotionally

By Leah Guy | Excerpt from The Fearless Path

Just let it go. These little words have become a main prescription for how to deal with breakups, physical stress and worry in our world of instant gratification, and healing. Let Go has become a self-proclaimed mantra that claims to rid a person of most any pain, but in reality it’s become a stressor on its own, making people suffer even more. “Let it go” is the worst advice for emotional healing and here’s why.

“Let it go” is based on detachment. While detachment is a reasonable practice in some areas of our lives, like reducing negative thinking or material possessions, it is a path to emotional isolation and disconnection.

Clearing out physical space is often positive and uplifting, but, getting rid of an object that an ex gave you doesn’t erase the heartache. Don’t mistakenly believe that your emotional “stuff” will go to the trash with your physical stuff. In fact, it gives a lot of power to the other person or situation, with an attempt to release their grasp on you. That’s their job. Yours is to process your own emotions and use experiences in your life to continually evolve into your highest nature.

A purge of physical items can feel good initially, but it doesn’t represent emotional healing. There’s no cosmic trash to dump our emotional “stuff” without disconnecting you from other parts of yourself or from others. Instead, “let it go” creates a cosmic landfill of negative energy and false promises that is making each of its depositor more toxic and less happy. This is where we begin to detach from love.

It’s tempting to follow the “let it go” mantra because we are scared of our feelings. Fear is the guiding force of detachment. We are afraid of being held captive of negative emotions. The irony is that we need to connect to our authentic feelings in order to actually process them and move forward. The mind tries to convince you otherwise. Dismissing emotions, people or memory is like removing a body appendage. You may learn to adapt, but you will always have phantom pain. There is no healing or wholeness with damaged, disconnection emotions. What if you could heal the hurt and maintain the positive emotions that were real?

What we need in times of emotional distress is to learn how to allow our true feelings that we are experiencing, and be willing to sit with the uncomfortableness while they process. And it gets uncomfortable to actually feel. Accepting your feelings is different than clutching onto your past. Allowance doesn’t have a tight grip but an open hand. Honoring all of the emotions that any experience evokes is what allows us to stay whole and healthy as the difficult feelings transform. Healing equals wholeness, detachment breeds anxiety, contempt and disconnection.

Love is hard. It’s messy and ugly and sometimes we experience grief or suffering with it. But, love never dies. That is one of the hardest realities to accept. That a person that has treated you poorly, left you or hurt you could still have a piece of  your heart. To recognize love exists doesn’t mean you should stay in a bad situation, it means to accept what is real, even when it feels like you want to deny it. From this place we are gifted with the true prescription for healing: compassion. Compassion for self and for others is the first step toward healing.

To deny ourselves the acceptance of our feelings, even the nasty gnarly ones, is to deny ourselves a full life, and growth. We miss the opportunity to understand healthy shame, how to express humility, feel empathy or ask for forgiveness. If we never fully know anger how can we every fully know forgiveness, or compassion or peace?

Don’t waste your energy trying to “let it go.” Instead, use your energy to accept what is real – your authentic emotions – and challenge yourself. You grow not in spite of your pain, but because of it.

About the Author

Leah Guy is the author of the new book The Fearless Path: A Radical Awakening to Emotional Healing and Inner Peace. She is also a transpersonal intuitive healer, survivor and media personality. For more info visit www.LeahGuy.com.

Portions of this article are reprinted, with the permission of the publisher, from THE FEARLESS PATH © Leah Guy. Published by New Page Books a division of Career Press, Wayne, NJ. 800-227-3371. All rights reserved.