The practice of letting go is a powerful tool for processing and healing emotions from our past—emotions that continue to influence our present reality. Much like physical hoarding, we all engage in a form of emotional hoarding. While we may not collect tangible objects, we accumulate emotions, beliefs, and destructive thought patterns, often carrying them since childhood. This emotional baggage becomes a source of profound suffering.
As David Hawkins explains:
“Letting go is like the sudden cessation of an inner pressure or the dropping of a weight. It is accompanied by a sudden feeling of relief and lightness, with an increased happiness and freedom. It is an actual mechanism of the mind, and everyone has experienced it on occasion.”
Understanding Emotional Pain: How Past Trauma Shapes Your Present
Many of our daily struggles stem from past experiences that triggered intense emotions—emotions we never fully processed or released because they felt too overwhelming. Even a single suppressed emotion can cascade into countless destructive thoughts and behaviors over time.
Your state of consciousness determines how you interpret life events. Experiences themselves don’t carry inherent meaning; rather, we interpret them through the lens of our inner state. Your consciousness acts as a filter that colors every experience. It’s not external reality that shapes your inner state, but your inner state that shapes your perception of reality. Any unprocessed past experiences continue to negatively influence your consciousness and perpetuate suffering.
As David Hawkins argues in “Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender”:
“The real source of ‘stress’ is actually internal; it is not external, as people would like to believe. the readiness to react with fear, for instance, depends on how much fear is already present within to be triggered by a stimulus. The more fear we have on the inside, the more our perception of the world is changed to a fearful, guarded expectancy. To the fearful person, this world is a terrifying place. To the angry person, this world is a chaos of frustration and vexation. To the guilty person, it is a world of temptation and sin, which they see everywhere. What we are holding inside colours our world. If we let go of guilt, we will see innocence; however, a guilt-ridden person will see only evil. The basic rule is that we focus on what we have repressed.”
This explains why childhood trauma or guilt from past mistakes can still hold us back today. Learning to let go becomes crucial because releasing emotions tied to past events frees us from the recurring thoughts and unconscious behaviors these emotions trigger. Often, we avoid facing such emotions simply because we lack effective tools to manage them when they surface.
Why Traditional Methods of Managing Negative Emotions Don’t Work
People typically try to avoid unprocessed emotions through four main approaches: suppression, repression, expression, and escape.
The Trap of Suppression and Repression
Suppression and repression involve pushing uncomfortable feelings into our unconscious mind. While repression happens unconsciously, suppression is a conscious choice. Often, we suppress or repress emotions that our family or society deemed unacceptable. Sometimes, we even end up suppressing positive emotions. This emotional suppression manifests in various physical and mental symptoms, including muscle tension, insomnia, irritability, and mood swings.
The Limitations of Emotional Expression
When we suppress an emotion for too long, the internal pressure becomes unbearable, leading to verbal or physical expression. While this temporarily relieves the tension caused by suppressed emotions, it’s not a long-term solution. This explains why many people experience frequent angry outbursts over minor issues. However, this approach proves ineffective because the tension isn’t fully released, and the emotions are simply suppressed again.
The Danger of Emotional Escape
Escape involves avoiding emotions through endless distractions—whether through emotional eating, binge-watching TV shows, excessive social media use, or substance abuse. Any activity that diverts our attention from uncomfortable feelings can become an escape route. In our modern society, escape appears to be the most common method of avoiding emotions. Contemporary technology offers unlimited sensory stimulation that helps us avoid confronting our inner experiences. Ask yourself honestly: when was the last time you sat alone with your emotions and thoughts?
The Letting Go Technique Explained by David Hawkins
David Hawkins describes the mechanism of letting go:
“Letting go involves being aware of a feeling, letting it come up, staying with it, and letting it run its course without wanting to make it different or do anything about it. It means simply to let the feeling be there and to focus on letting out the energy behind it. The first step is to allow yourself to have the feeling without resisting it, venting it, fearing it, condemning it, or moralizing about it. It means to drop judgment and to see that it is just a feeling. The technique is to be with the feeling and surrender all efforts to modify it in any way. Let go of wanting to resist the feeling. It is resistance that keeps the feeling going. When you give up resisting or trying to modify the feeling, it will shift to the next feeling and be accompanied by a lighter sensation. A feeling that is not resisted will disappear as the energy behind it disappears.”
How to Practice the Letting Go Meditation
The practice of letting go involves staying present with your emotions during challenging times, without resistance. This approach contradicts our usual habits but draws from the Zen principle that muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone. Our resistance to feelings stems from how we judge them, and this internal conflict keeps them alive. That’s why we should abandon the concept of “negative emotions,” as it implies that our feelings are fundamentally wrong.
The Letting Go Technique: A Practical Approach to Emotional Release
When intense emotions arise, instead of suppressing or ignoring them, find a comfortable space and allow yourself to feel fully—whether it’s sadness, anger, discouragement, or any other intense emotion. You might incorporate breathing exercises, focusing attention on areas of bodily tension and visualizing your breath dissolving that tension. Through letting go, you can free yourself from your karma—the unconscious patterns that cause you to relive the past in the present.
As Carl Jung wisely noted:
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
The Role of Acceptance in the Letting Go Technique
As you practice letting go of difficult emotions, your unconscious mind will present more opportunities to free yourself from long-repressed feelings. This journey unfolds gradually; facing your unconscious’s Pandora’s box all at once would overwhelm your conscious mind.
Progress often manifests through the spontaneous emergence of buried painful memories, allowing you to release emotions connected to past experiences that remained unconsciously within you. These repressed emotions keep us trapped at lower levels of consciousness.
Everyone experiences particular traumas during their lifetime that give rise to strong emotions we unfortunately suppress. By acknowledging and releasing the intense emotions that regularly surface, you have the opportunity to progress toward states of consciousness where inner peace—which we all seek—emerges naturally.