This week I want to talk about letting go. Not the kind of letting go that gets tossed around in woo-woo circles like a motivational sticker. I mean the REAL shit asked of us when we consider letting go of the things we cling to.
Sure, we’re told to release what no longer serves us. I’ve said that.
AND, what if you’ve tried that – again and again – and your hands are still clenched in a death grip around that old story, habit, or fear?
Well, here’s a radical reframe: Sometimes to let GO, we need to let IN.
I know it sounds counter intuitive. But hear me out. THis isn’t about bypassing or distracting. It’s not about pretending you’re free of something you still feel buried inside. This is about intentional letting in. Mindful, deliberate nourishment. Because what you feed grows, and what you stop feeding eventually withers.
There is a concept in health coaching called “crowding out.” Instead of telling people to eliminate sugar or processed foods overnight, they’re encouraged to add more whole foods, hydration, and movement. Overtime, the body stops craving what it once clung to because it’s being fed something richer. That need for what’s harmful naturally diminishes and is literally crowded out.
The same can be true for our inner lives.
Now, letting in doesn’t mean replacing. It means nourishing. Planting something strong enough, beautiful enough, real enough to take root. And over time, making the weeds irrelevant.
Of course, letting in is easier said than done, like most things. But it honors how fiercely human we are. ALL of us get stuck and some point and struggle with letting go – and are afraid to open up
Maybe we are afraid of letting go of fear and hypervigilance because it means we’ll be unsafe.
Maybe we’re afraid to let IN joy or love because we’re afraid of wanting that would mean if it didn’t arrive the way we wanted it to.
And this concept of letting in isn’t new. It aligns closely with a core Buddhist teaching: Right Effort. Think of it like tending a garden. It’s about cultivating what’s wholesome and helpful so fully that what’s unwholesome or unhelpful can no longer thrive.
Of course, letting go is only half the equation. The other half is this: what are you letting in?
When we’re fixated on letting go, we can get trapped in a mindset of deprivation. It starts to feel like loss. Like we’re being asked to sever something without knowing what will take its place.
But when we let in joy, art, nourishment, community… we shift out of this mindset. We make the body and psyche feel safe enough to release, to let in.
Letting in isn’t about stuffing yourself with buffering or distractions. It’s not filling a spiritual fridge with spiritual junk food. It’s choosing what belongs, what restores, what realigns.
And that takes discernment. Mindfulness. And sometimes, a whole lot of misadventures and trial and error.
Letting in is a practice. It’s active and devotional. And sometimes, it’s the only doorway out of stuckness that actually opens.
This isn’t about pretending everything’s okay. This is about creating the conditions for transformation, like a master gardener. About building the internal ecology where old pain no longer dominates the terrain.
So the next time someone tells you to just “let it go,” even if you want to flip them off, smile gently. Maybe you will.
But first, let in the thing that feeds you.
You will learn:
// What “crowding out” is and how we can use to help us let go of what no longer serves us
// How to know what the rights things to let in are
// What happens when we DON’T let in
// Some ways we can practice letting in when we feel ourselves stuck in old patterns
Resources:
// Episode 55: Letting Go to Grow
// Episode 209: Ripening and the Inevitability of Our Awakening
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