The Healing Power of Letting Go

What my health has taught me about healing through opposites, and how to apply that to a hurting world. Plus, the prophetic words of poet Andrea Gibson (1975-2025).

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Dear Ones,

I’m writing to you this week from one of the most creatively generative spots I know: the porch of our AirBnB here in Maine, where vacation is winding down.

Looking out at the lake, the warm breeze on my shoulders, and the distant sound of kids playing on the shore, fills me with such peace. I am someone who struggles enormously with distractions at home, so coming here is both a mental and creative reset. Suddenly, I can focus. I am filled with ideas. I have access to play (even if the 1,000-piece puzzle we picked up at a library book sale has brought me to the brink of sanity).

It’s not perfect, of course. My children enjoy being confined together, until the moment they very much don’t. I’m still picking ticks off the dog and ants off the counter. The mattress here's terrible in a way only those over 40 can appreciate. Still, it’s lovely to feel solid again after a season of transformation.

The messy middle of change is a disorienting place. It’s a period of no longer feeling like ourselves, and not quite existing as the thing we must become. It’s a bit like being tossed in the tumble dry setting: it’s dark and there are no escape hatches. You just have to ride it out.

For many, it’s also a season of grief. Not grief in the sense of death, though certainly people are dying, facing illnesses, etc., (being attuned to these tragedies, even if we’re not personally connected, engages us in the process), but grief as a cycle of letting go. In that regard, every person I know has been dealing with too, too much.

Letting go of identities, marriages, houses, jobs.

Letting go of long-held notions of how the world works.

Letting go of certainty.

Letting go of being correct.

The act of letting go is one of the most challenging and sacred functions of being human. We are descendants of nomadic people. When the ground upon which our ancestors built homesteads went barren, they let go and moved on. When their countries became too dangerous, too rife with political violence or poverty, they crossed oceans and began again.

It’s painful to let go of what once defined us, but it’s also healthy.

Some of the most powerful instances of letting go exist on a small scale. Whether it’s moving on from friendships, habits that no longer serve, or simply pointing at ourselves and saying, “I was wrong. Or stubborn. Or foolish,” — we gain space and freedom by laying down that which we’d rigidly clung to.

Like all things, of course, it’s easier said than done.

I’m learning this on a body level, having struggled with chronic digestive issues over the past year, which have periodically forced me to give up every beloved crutch: coffee, alcohol, sugar, processed food. For those who doubt the brain-gut connection, my stress and I are here to tell you it’s very real.

Every flare-up has been a maddening test of patience, and also an opportunity to turn inward and imagine a different way of being. Who am I, divorced from my comforting coffee rituals? Who am I, sipping water at a cocktail party? Passing on my favorite foods?

Like anyone with food issues, I hate having my hand forced in this self-discovery, but I can’t disregard the value of what it has taught me, namely, that the only way to get well again is to engage with the world differently.

Talk about a metaphor for the state of everything right now.

Earlier this week, desperate for some resolution to my stomach issues, I met with an Ayurvedic practitioner in town. Years ago, I completed an Ayurveda yoga workshop that gave me a solid overview of this approach to health (think of it as yoga medicine), but like many things, I’ve failed to put it into consistent practice. I needed a re-teach.

“The core principle of Ayurveda,” my practitioner reminded me, “is that like increases like. We heal through opposites.”

He was referring to the doshas, the three constitutions or states of being, that comprise our overall wellness (if you’ve never taken a dosha assessment and you’re curious, they’re available for free online). Imbalance in one dosha, such as an abundance of dryness and air (for us anxious vata girlies), should be treated with the opposite qualities (moisture, thickness, grounding).

The logic of Ayurveda resonates with me, and I’m happy to report that my trendy new “tree bark” cocktail has done wonders to repair my gut (coined by my children, it is, in fact, a tea made of slippery elm, marshmallow root, and licorice root).

But I walked away from that appointment thinking about more than just my stomach: How can we apply this principle of opposites to the dis-ease we’re feeling in the world right now?

On social media (and elsewhere), we are, indeed, very unwell, caught up in an unending ping-pong battle in which we’ve taken to shouting half-baked, often misinformed opinions, then staging full-court defenses against anyone who attempts to unpack our claims. Tribalism has been brought to its confused knees over lies and disinformation, and it’s like wading in a pool of sharks, trying to guess which one will nab your ankle. What’s wild is that, in a different context, these are sharks with whom we fundamentally agree on most things.

Never in human history have each of our tender opinions been so fully accessible and on display. We simply don’t know what to do if we can’t agree on every issue.

And so, we’re stuck.

We’re doing the opposite of letting go. We are holding on tighter than ever.

Don’t get me wrong: we should hold on. We should hold the line firm on every issue connected to human rights, whether it’s maternal health, racism, or the mental health of LGBTQ+ teens. When it comes to respecting people’s humanity, let’s not move that line even a little.

But perhaps there’s some room for exploration about what else we’re holding tight to: ego, shame, the rush to judgment, the worship of false heroes. Perhaps it’s time to imagine a different, opposite way of being in the world.

Like increases like, opposites heal.

I can admit to having been wrong about many things in life. I’ve been a hypocrite at times. I’ve been blinded by privilege. I’ve been unnecessarily pessimistic about the state of things. And I’ve been supremely indignant (this seems to be my manufactured default setting).

In short, I live with blinders and always will. But I’ve found freedom in acknowledging these limitations and owning the mistakes. I’ve found liberation in slowing down and not rushing to react. I’ve tasted humility in acknowledging all I do not know.

It’s all a practice (I guarantee I’ll fall off the wagon many times), but I hope I won’t be too proud to get back on.

So, I’m posing some food for thought this week:

What would treating with opposites look like in this current moment? For you? For our real life and online communities?

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Lastly, the world lost a great mind this week in the form of Colorado Poet Laureate Andrea Gibson. I’d only discovered Andrea’s work about a year ago, but their passing has moved me to revisit their earlier work. There are so many beautiful poems being spread widely on social media, but I wanted to share Andrea’s NPR Tiny Desk performance. It brought me, simultaneously, to tears and laughter. It is filled to the brim with humanity and oh so very wise.

You can find Andrea’s published work here.

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If you’re in a season of change or letting go, please do share in the comments below. We have so much to learn from one another.