16/10/2025
When I was in my early 20s and an emotional wreck because of another break-up, or family disaster, and my Zen healing and TCM coach would tell me 'just let it go', I'd usually stop crying. More because thoughts ran through my head like 'but how?', 'what does that even mean?', but I came to recognise that all feelings pass and change with time.
It isn't part of Western culture to know how to process feelings. In the UK we're brought up to hold it in, not cause a fuss by displaying feelings like sadness openly, and learn to squash down how we really feel instead of expressing it, or even allowing it in case it's 'wrong' or embarrasses someone. This starts in school when our natural need to play, question and explore is suppressed and limited. We don't view all feelings and thoughts as a normal part of being human. I think this is why we misunderstand the point of meditation and mindfulness, deciding we couldn't possibly sit still and stop thinking. There's a sense of perfectionism that stops us from believing in our abilities and capacity that limits us.
In a culture obsessed with fixing people, we don't see ourselves as already a whole and limitless person. The reason I don't listen to self-improvement podcasts, apps or read the books that are telling us about 'being the best version of ourselves' is because I already learned everything they are saying from Buddhism and TCM. Everything.
It's all just repackaged consumer-sized noise and clutter in an industry that's built to keep us feeling broken and insecure. It causes us to feel pressure to do more, be more, have more. But you'll never feel fully abundant, free and safe until you stop believing you're not already enough.
The true meaning of letting go is knowing everything transforms into something else - allowing thoughts to move through us, to come and go. It's letting them pass by, like clouds moving across a clear blue sky. It's that simple. When we don't process trauma, anxiety and other heavy feelings, it creates blockages, which creates sicknesses (mental and physical) and that can affect those around us. Healing helps everyone.
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