Are you clinging to some ideas about life or about yourself? About how things are supposed to be, or about what you consider “normal”? Then you may unintentionally rob yourself of freedom and opportunities.
Buddhists believe in non-attachment. Non-attachment means not clinging to how things are supposed to be, so life can be experienced more as it is. That sounds really hard to me. Hard to do, and hard not to be attached.
But I have experienced a few instances where exactly this non-attachment—this not having an expectation of how things are supposed to be—actually set me free. Truly free. And only through that could what I really “wanted” emerge, or what later turned out to be what really made sense.
My mom used to say, “You need to let go, and then what you let go of can come back.” She meant it in terms of children growing up. Wisely, she knew she could not bind me to my childhood, our home, or to her. Not just because it would have been damaging for me to be held back like that, but also because it would have hurt our relationship. Children grow up, and we need to let go. And then they can choose to come back, and you may have a grown-up relationship with them (if you are lucky). Of course, this is a gradual process, and I am not saying that young people do not need responsible and present adults in their lives. But it is worth recognizing that stepping back is part of it.
While my mom thought of children, when she said that you need to let go for things to come back, it turns out that letting go is wise in many situations in life.
For small things, like letting go of the idea that there needs to be a home-cooked warm dinner on the table every evening, or that you cannot wear pink blazers to work, or that mowing the lawn is a male responsibility (guilty). You can do whatever you want—just don’t turn it into a “should” or “should not.” Make it a “I want to…” or “I do not want to…”
But what about the bigger things?
“I want and need this relationship.”
“I am afraid this will fall apart and my boyfriend will leave.”
“I don’t want to separate because it would mean my kids live in two places.”
When you cling tightly to something like that, the dynamic shifts—and not in favor of what you want most. You start to suffocate the relationship. It cannot develop, grow, or transform.
But the moment you can honestly say, “This relationship might end. I don’t want it to—but if it does, I will survive. I will be fine,” something changes. You set yourself—and the relationship—free. It can rebuild on something more real: you being yourself, and being honest with both yourself and your partner.
I don’t fully understand why this works, but I have seen and felt it happen.
It seems that the moment you let go, you free up an incredible amount of energy—not just in yourself, but in the whole situation you were trying to control. Things begin to shift. Like Tetris blocks falling into place. Like a chemical reaction with lowered activation energy—things flow more easily into what they are meant to be. It is almost instant. You don’t have to hold everything together. You can let go and trust that things will work, and even if things don’t turn out the way you hoped, you will move through it. Holding on does not prevent any pain—it only keeps you stuck in it. But when you do let go, something shifts. Freedom. Space opens up. And in that space, something new can emerge—often something that fits you better than what you were trying to hold on to.
It is in the ‘letting go’ that you can find freedom.
And while letting go does not guarantee a better outcome,
it is what makes a better outcome possible at all.
