Letting Go & Moving On, Why It’s the Hardest Thing We’re Called to Do and the Most Necessary
Dear Friend,
There is a point in every healing journey where you come face-to-face with one of the hardest truths you will ever have to accept: you cannot move forward while holding onto what hurt you. And yet this is where most people get stuck. Not because they don’t want to heal, not because they don’t understand it logically, but because letting go requires something deeper than understanding; it requires detachment. And detachment is one of the hardest emotional, psychological, and even spiritual skills we are asked to develop.
The law of detachment is often misunderstood. People think it means you stop caring, that you become cold, that you disconnect from people, from love, from life. But that is not it at all. Detachment is not about not feeling; it is about not clinging. It is the ability to say, I experienced this, it mattered, it impacted me, but it does not get to define me forever. In therapy, this is where the deepest work lives because when someone cannot detach, they stay emotionally fused to the pain, and when you stay fused to the pain, you relive it over and over again.
If you do not let go, if you do not forgive, if you do not move forward, you are no longer being hurt by what happened; you are now hurting yourself. It becomes like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to suffer. And I say that with so much compassion because I have lived this too. I have been betrayed in relationships, in business, in friendships. I have experienced people copying, competing, talking behind my back, and trying to tear down what I was building. And every single time I was faced with the same decision, do I hold onto this or do I let it go? Because holding onto it feels justified, it feels like protection, it feels like control, it feels like if I don’t let this go, then it mattered. But what I’ve learned is that holding on doesn’t protect you, it traps you. Every time I chose to hold onto the anger, the betrayal, the injustice, I could feel it in my body, tight chest, racing thoughts, replaying conversations, trying to make sense of something that already happened. And in those moments, I wasn’t free; I was still in it.
From a therapeutic lens, letting go is not difficult because of the situation itself; it is difficult because of what is attached to it. Letting go often means letting go of the need for closure, letting go of the apology you never received, letting go of who you thought someone was, letting go of the version of life you thought you would have, letting go of justice, letting go of control. And underneath all of that, you are letting go of an emotional attachment, and that attachment is usually tied to a deeper wound like abandonment, rejection, betrayal, unworthiness, or insecurity. That is why in therapy, this is one of the deepest wounds we work through because it is never just about the situation; it is about what it means to you.
And for my neurodivergent clients and community, I want to speak directly to you here because letting go and moving on can feel even harder, and there is nothing wrong with you for that. When your brain is wired to process deeply, to pattern recognize, to seek understanding, to replay to make sense of something, your mind does not just “drop” things easily. You may revisit conversations, analyze tone, try to find the exact moment something shifted, or hold onto fairness and justice in a way that feels non-negotiable. Your nervous system may also hold onto experiences longer, especially if they felt confusing, overwhelming, or unresolved. So if this resonates with you, I hope it allows you to soften with yourself instead of judging yourself. It is not that you are unwilling to let go; it is that your brain and body are trying to complete something that never felt complete. And the work is not to force yourself to stop thinking about it, the work is to safely process it so your system can finally release it.
As a therapist, I can tell you that almost everything comes back to this inability to let go and move on. Clients stay stuck in past relationships, childhood wounds, betrayals, family dynamics, situations that ended years ago, and they are still carrying it in their nervous system, in their thoughts, in their behaviors. Not because they want to, but because they have not been shown how to release it. Letting go is not a switch; it is a process. First, there is awareness; you have to see what you are still holding onto. Where does your mind go when you are triggered? What story are you replaying, what still has an emotional charge in your body? Then there is validation, which meant something to you. This is where most people skip steps. They try to jump straight to moving on without honoring that it hurt. You do not need to minimize it to release it; you need to acknowledge it. Then comes feeling, not thinking. You cannot think your way out of something that lives in your body. And finally, release, the nervous system has to let it go.
One of the most powerful ways to begin this process is something so simple, and yet so overlooked. Write the letter. Write everything you wish you could say, everything you are still holding onto, every thought, every emotion, every unanswered question. Do not filter it, do not edit it, just let it come out of you. And then, release it. Burn it, bury it, drown it, tear it up, but give your body and your mind the signal that this is no longer staying inside of you. Because what stays unexpressed stays stored. And what stays stored continues to shape how you feel, how you react, and how you move through your life.
Letting go is like releasing an anchor tied to your body. You can try to swim forward, you can push, you can force, but you will always feel resistance until you release what is holding you down. It is also like leveling up. Every time I have experienced betrayal, comparison, or people trying to pull me down, I have realized that staying in it keeps me at that level. Engaging, defending, and holding onto it keeps me there. But when I release it, I move up. Because you cannot rise while carrying what is meant to keep you stuck. And emotionally, not letting go is like holding onto a toxin. It shows up as anxiety, overthinking, resentment, hypervigilance, and emotional exhaustion. When you release it, your body begins to regulate, your nervous system softens, and you come back to yourself.
I see our community struggle to let go of relationships that ended without closure, being cheated on or betrayed, friendships that quietly fell apart, childhood experiences that were never processed, feeling overlooked or not enough, business setbacks, comparison, and feeling behind. And the common thread is this: it is not just about what happened, it is about how it made you feel. Letting go does not mean what happened was okay; it does not mean you agree with it, it means you are choosing yourself over the pain. You are choosing peace over proving a point, freedom over attachment, and your future over your past.
Letting go and forgiveness are often spoken about as if they are two separate things, but in reality, they are the same process expressed in different ways. Letting go is what forgiveness looks like in action. It is the embodiment of it. Forgiveness is not just something you say or decide once; it is something you practice by releasing the grip that the situation still has on your thoughts, your emotions, and your body. When you are truly letting go, you are forgiving. And when you are forgiving, you are actively loosening your attachment to what happened.
A lot of people struggle with this because they think forgiveness is about the other person. They think it means approval, reconciliation, or pretending the pain did not exist. But forgiveness is actually an internal shift. It is the moment you stop carrying the emotional residue of the experience. It is choosing not to keep reopening a wound that is asking to be closed. Letting go is the process of setting that weight down, piece by piece, until it no longer feels like something you have to hold.
There is also a misconception that forgiveness happens all at once, when in reality it often happens in layers. You might think you have let something go, and then a memory surfaces or an emotion rises again. That does not mean you failed; it means there is another layer ready to be released. Letting go is not a single decision; it is a series of moments where you choose not to reattach yourself to what you have already outgrown. It is a returning, over and over again, to the decision to free yourself.
Forgiveness through letting go also changes your relationship with the past. Instead of carrying it as something active and heavy, it becomes something integrated. It becomes part of your story, but not the part that controls you. You can remember without reliving. You can reflect without being pulled back into the same emotional state. That is how you know you are truly letting go, when the memory is still there, but the charge is not.
At its core, letting go as forgiveness is an act of self-liberation. It is you deciding that your energy is no longer available to something that has already taken enough from you. It is not about forgetting or erasing, it is about releasing your attachment to the pain so you can return to yourself fully. And that is what makes it one of the most powerful things you can do in your healing journey.
For my spiritual and religious community, no matter what you believe or what path you follow, the theme of forgiveness and letting go is universal. Every tradition speaks to the same truth in different language, that holding onto resentment, anger, or pain keeps you bound, while releasing it creates space for peace, healing, and alignment. Forgiveness is not about excusing what was done or saying it was okay; it is about freeing yourself from carrying it any longer. When we hold onto hurt, we stay energetically and emotionally tied to the very thing we are trying to move beyond. But when we forgive, we loosen that attachment and return to ourselves. Letting go becomes an act of trust, trust in something greater than you, trust in the natural order of healing, trust that you do not have to carry everything alone. It is a surrender of control, of needing answers, of needing justice to look a certain way, and that surrender is where peace begins.
You can see this reflected across different faiths and spiritual paths. In Christianity, forgiveness is central, where believers are taught to forgive as they have been forgiven, releasing resentment and trusting God with justice. In Islam, forgiveness is seen as a strength, with emphasis on showing mercy and trusting Allah as the ultimate judge, reminding us that letting go brings spiritual elevation. In Judaism, the process of forgiveness, especially during Yom Kippur, emphasizes accountability, reflection, and releasing resentment so the soul can be renewed. In Buddhism, letting go is at the core of the teachings, where attachment is the root of suffering, and freedom comes from releasing clinging and returning to presence. In Hinduism, forgiveness and detachment are tied to karma, trusting that actions have consequences and that holding onto anger only disrupts your own inner balance. Across Indigenous and earth-based traditions, there is often a deep understanding of release through ritual, returning pain to the earth, the fire, or the water, symbolizing that we are not meant to carry everything alone.
Across all of these, the message is the same. You are not meant to hold onto everything forever. You are meant to release, to trust, to grow, and to return to a state of wholeness. Forgiveness is not weakness; it is one of the most powerful things you can choose, because it is the moment you decide that your inner peace matters more than the pain you’ve been holding onto.
And if you are reading this and thinking, I know I need to let go, but I do not know how, this is exactly why we choose this journey. The Letting Go and Moving On 9D Breathwork Journey is designed to help your body release what your mind has been holding onto. This is not just something you listen to; this is a guided experience that works with your nervous system so you can finally process and move what has been stuck.
We are hosting this exact journey on April 11th from 12:00 to 4:00 pm at Gallery DeFi. This is a 4-hour immersive experience with pre and post-integration support, a powerful 9D breathwork journey, and a community of people all coming together with the same intention to release. And I will tell you, when a room full of people comes together with the same mission, something shifts. Something opens. Something that felt stuck finally moves.
If you cannot make it in person, this is the only journey in our library that you can purchase and keep because it is the work. This is the journey that changes everything. You can access the Letting Go and Moving On journey below and experience it in your own space, at your own pace.
https://9d.9dbreathwork.com/letting-go-sales-page-page?utm_source=partner_program&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=letting-go&utm_content=rachelsims
If you have been holding onto something, if you feel stuck, if you know it is time to move forward, but something is still pulling you back, this is your invitation. Come breathe with us, come release, come move forward. And if you cannot make it, you can purchase the Letting Go and Moving On journey below with the link. Because you deserve to be free from what you have been carrying.
Dr. Rachel Sims & Mama Lisa
Breath by Design x Gallery DeFi 🤍
