Letting Go: A Simple Practice for Emotional Freedom
From the moment we are born, we begin to try to make sense of the world around us. We look to our parents, siblings, schooling, culture, and the media, gradually forming conclusions about who we are and what the world is all about.
No one is born thinking they are worthy or unworthy of love, that people can or cannot be trusted, or that relationships are difficult or easy. It’s all something we pick up along the way.
Most of us then forget that we learned these conclusions and subconsciously hold onto them as the truth about who we are and how the world works. In psychology, this is known as cognitive fusion - we become identified with our mental concepts. You hear this all the time in people's language - I am anxious, I’m a smoker, or I’m someone who can never get it right.
Because we subconsciously hold these conclusions to be the truth about who we are and how the world works, they feel unchangeable and immovable. Asking someone to let go of their emotion or belief system can feel equivalent to asking them to let go of their arm! It feels impossible.
The ways we cope
When we fuse and identify with our thoughts in this way, we resort to two main ways of coping: suppression or expression.
Suppression refers to the process of pushing unwanted memories, thoughts, emotions, or beliefs out of conscious awareness and into the subconscious. As a result, nothing is truly resolved - it is simply held beneath the surface. Most of us carry so much suppressed material that it’s equivalent to working on a computer that’s running a hundred tabs in the background. In response, we often turn to medication, alcohol, scrolling, binge eating, or other forms of distraction to escape the underlying sense of overwhelm and discomfort.
The other form of coping - expressing - involves acting the feeling out in some way, whether through communication, behaviour, art, or other forms of expression. This is generally better than suppressing it, because expression brings it out into the open and, with the right approach, can create the opportunity for release or resolution. However, we all know people who endlessly talk about their problems - sometimes even in therapy - yet nothing really changes. This is often because, while they are expressing the emotion, they are still feeding the narrative and continuing to identify with it.
No surprise, research shows that cognitive fusion is correlated with higher levels of anxiety, depression, OCD, and other mental health disorders. Given that these forms of coping ultimately don’t work, we need to find another way.
Why not just…let it go?
Pick up a small object in your environment you’d be happy to drop to the floor, like a pen. Now make a fist and grip it really tight… and you’ll start to notice something very familiar - tension, contraction, and pain. It feels familiar because it’s what you’re doing with your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs when you hold onto them.
Now loosen your grip on the object, roll it around in your hand, and notice the relief. Then just drop it to the floor. You can release it in that way because it’s not a part of who or what you are.
And that’s what you can do with your thoughts, emotions and beliefs, because just like that object, they’re not who you really are. You weren’t born with them; you picked them up somewhere. And if you picked them up, you can quite literally also put them back down. You don’t have to keep identifying with them. In psychology, this is known as cognitive diffusion - seeing you are not your thoughts, emotions and beliefs - and it is highly correlated with better mental and emotional well-being.
And the truth is, your subconscious already knows how to let go of unwanted thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. In fact, it wants to release them — but often can’t while they’re being held onto. So all that’s needed is a reminder of how to allow that letting go to happen, and the subconscious does the rest.
The Method
While studying hypnotherapy at The Mind Academy back in 2011, I was introduced to a letting-go process based on the Sedona Method. To this day, it remains one of the most powerful techniques I’ve ever learned. Here it is.
Find a place where you can sit down undisturbed for about 10 minutes. Close your eyes and scan your body from head to toe, noticing any areas of tension, contraction, or uncomfortable sensation that you would like to release. Alternatively, you may bring to mind a memory, thought, emotion, or belief that you would like to let go of, and simply hold it in your awareness.
For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to refer to the thing you want to release as an emotion, though it could just as easily be a thought, belief, or behavioural pattern.
Make a fist with either your left or your right hand and place it on your lap. This fist now represents the emotion you want to let go of. Imagine opening a window over your chest and your stomach, where sensations can freely flow out. Open up another window over your head where thoughts and beliefs can freely escape.
Ask yourself the following questions:
Could I welcome this emotion in? As in, could you allow it to be fully present with you? Then, say yes to the emotion several times. By doing this, you’re releasing your hold on the emotion - not suppressing nor expressing it, just allowing.
Could I let some of this go? As in, is it possible? And the answer is, of course, yes. As outlined above, you weren’t born with it, and it isn’t who you are at your core. It’s just something that was learned and picked up along the way. And because it was picked up, it can also be put down.
Would I let some of this go? In other words, do you want to keep holding onto it, or would you be willing to step into a world where you’re free from it? Where there is an absence of that emotional pattern?
When would I be willing to let it go? Do you want to hold onto it for another day, month, year, or decade? Or just let it go…now?
And then, when you’re ready, open your fist and let some of it flow out the windows. Some people like to imagine colours, smoke or clouds leaving, other people just feel it being released.
As you release, you may notice a big shift, a subtle shift, or perhaps nothing at all. Whatever happens, simply say yes to whatever remains and gently invite it in. Then repeat the process: Could I let some of this go? Would I? When? And then, release. Keep going until the emotion has fully released.
Where freedom begins
Now, I realise this method may seem overly simplistic at first. But when you consider all the remarkable things your subconscious already does automatically - beating the heart, digesting food, absorbing and distributing nutrients, releasing waste, and so on - why wouldn’t it also be capable of metabolising and releasing emotions? Of course, it can.
But it’s important to acknowledge that this is not a quick fix. It takes time for the subconscious to gradually let go of years of accumulated emotional patterns and stored tension. Using the computer analogy, letting go is a bit like closing down unnecessary background tabs that have been draining the system’s energy for years. Little by little, as those tabs are cleared away, more RAM becomes available, and the system begins functioning more smoothly and efficiently again. You begin to feel lighter, freer, and more naturally yourself.
Of course, there is more to this process, and if you’d like additional guidance or support, you’re always welcome to reach out or book a session. But importantly, you already have more than enough information to begin practising on your own and making genuine progress.
Happy releasing!
Want Support?
Lucas Lindblom is a clinical hypnotherapist with a background in psychology, based in Thornbury, Melbourne. Sessions are available both in person and online. To book, follow the links below.
