The Courage to Let Go

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to feel safe.

Not simply protected from harm, not safe because everything is going according to plan, not because the people we love are happy, or because we’ve somehow managed to eliminate uncertainty from our lives, but a deeper kind of safety. The kind that allows us to stop anticipating everything that could collapse, to stop believing that everything depends on us to remain standing, to stop feeling responsible for holding everything up.

And perhaps most importantly, the kind of safety that gives us permission to exist without having to explain ourselves, without defending our feelings, without justifying our experiences, without constantly trying to demonstrate that our intentions are good, that our love is genuine, that we’re worthy of belonging.

I’ve been wondering how many of us spent so much of our lives learning to be strong, learning to hold things together, learning to keep everything from falling apart that we never really learned how to feel safe. How many of us became so accustomed to being dependable that we’ve forgotten what it feels like to depend on someone else?

How many of us learned to anticipate disappointment, to solve problems before they surface, to hold everything together so tightly that we forgot what rest feels like? And how many of us have confused our ability to keep things from crashing with the experience of truly living?

I ask these questions because I recognize myself in them. I’ve spent much of my life learning how to persevere, how to adapt, how to find a way forward when circumstances are uncertain, how to rebuild when something doesn’t work out, how to continue when the path ahead isn’t clear.

Those experiences have given me strength. They’ve taught me resilience, determination, compassion, and the importance of showing up for people that I love. And I’m grateful for those lessons.

But lately, I’ve been asking myself something different.

What if the next chapter of my life isn’t about becoming stronger? What if it’s about becoming confident enough in the strength I already have that I no longer need to hold everything up every moment?

What if the peace I’ve been searching for doesn’t come from finally keeping everything together? What if it comes from discovering that things won’t collapse if I rest?

What if the greatest expression of strength isn’t holding everything together? What if it’s finally feeling safe enough to stop?

Because underneath that urge to hold things up, I think there’s something deeply human, our fear of the unknown.

We want to know what happens next. We want reassurance that the people we love will stay, that the decisions we make will work out, that the things we’ve built won’t collapse. We want to know that if we loosen our grip, nothing will come crashing down.

And when we can’t know those things, we sometimes respond by bracing harder, as though our effort might somehow eliminate uncertainty, as though worrying enough could prevent disappointment, as though anticipating every possible outcome might protect us from the ones we fear most.

But I wonder how often the very things we do to protect ourselves from uncertainty become the things that keep us from experiencing freedom. And how often the unknown isn’t actually asking us to prevent disaster. Maybe it’s asking us to discover something about ourselves that we couldn’t have known while we were holding everything up.

I think we begin developing our understanding of safety long before we have words for it. Our earliest experiences teach us something about the world, whether people are dependable, whether our feelings matter, whether we can ask for what we need, whether love remains available when we’re struggling, whether belonging is something that we can trust, or something we must continually earn.

And those lessons aren’t always communicated through words. Sometimes they’re communicated through absence, through uncertainty, through the way someone responds when we’re afraid, through the experience of needing something and not receiving it, through the difference between being loved and feeling loved.

I’ve spent a great deal of my life exploring belonging. Being adopted, growing up biracial in a white family, navigating questions about identity and connection, have all contributed to the way I understand myself and the world around me.

There have been experiences that shaped me before I had the language to fully understand them. And while I don’t believe any single experience defines who I am, I recognize that our histories influence the ways we learn to move through the world. They influence what feels familiar, what feels threatening, what we expect from others, and what we come to believe about ourselves.

Sometimes those beliefs become so deeply embedded that we stop recognizing them as beliefs. They simply feel like truth.

I have to be strong. I have to figure things out. I can’t depend too much on anyone. If something matters, I have to make sure it doesn’t fall apart. If someone doesn’t understand me, I have to keep explaining until they do. If I love someone enough, perhaps I can prevent losing them.

And somewhere beneath those beliefs, there may be a quieter set of questions.

Am I safe enough to simply be myself? Am I safe without managing everything? Am I safe inside the not knowing?

I wonder how many people recognize some version of those questions. Maybe your experience wasn’t adoption. Maybe it was a parent who struggled to be emotionally available. Maybe it was a relationship in which affection felt conditional. Maybe you experienced betrayal, loss, rejection, or years of having to take care of yourself.

Maybe you were the child who became responsible too early, the one who learned to read the room, the one who kept everyone laughing, the one who made sure nobody else was upset, the one who never wanted to become a burden.

Or maybe nothing particularly dramatic happened. Maybe you simply absorbed the message, as so many of us do, that your value comes from what you accomplish and what you provide.

Whatever the circumstances, I think many of us arrive in adulthood carrying stories we never consciously chose. And then we spend years trying to live within them.

One of the ideas we’ve explored through Making Space for Love is that the stories we tell ourselves can become the lens through which we experience everything.

Something happens. We interpret it. That interpretation creates an emotional response. And before we realize what’s happening, we’re reacting not only to the present moment, but to the meaning our history has taught us to assign to it.

Someone becomes quiet and we wonder if they’re pulling away. Someone disagrees with us and we feel misunderstood. Someone needs space and we experience it as rejection. Something becomes uncertain and we immediately begin trying to shore things up.

The feelings are real, but the stories creating them aren’t always accurate. And that distinction matters.

Because when we begin recognizing the difference between what is happening and what we’re telling ourselves is happening, we create a little space, a little room to breathe, a little room to become curious, a little room to choose something different.

And perhaps that space is where confidence begins. Not the confidence that comes from knowing exactly what will happen, but the confidence that comes from trusting ourselves even when we don’t.

I’ve been thinking about the places and relationships where I experience the greatest confidence, and something interesting has become clear to me.

I feel most confident when I’m in relationship with the natural world.

There’s something about those experiences that allows a part of me to settle. I don’t feel the same need to anticipate, explain, defend, or prove. I can simply exist.

And I’ve been wondering why. Why does confidence come so naturally there? Why can I feel completely comfortable being myself in one environment, yet find myself questioning things I know to be true about who I am in another?

I think the answer has something to do with trust, and perhaps even more importantly, with faith.

When I’m in nature, I experience a kind of confidence that’s difficult to describe. It’s not because I believe nothing can hurt me. I’ve spent enough time in the ocean and mountains to understand their power.

I know that conditions change, that the unexpected happens, that the natural world doesn’t exist to accommodate my expectations. The ocean can be calm one moment and dangerous the next. The mountains can offer extraordinary beauty and unforgiving conditions.

Nature isn’t always gentle. And yet, I trust it. Not because I believe I can control it, but because I’ve developed a relationship with it.

I’ve learned to pay attention, to listen, to observe, to recognize its rhythms. I’ve learned that confidence doesn’t require certainty. It requires connection.

The ocean continues moving whether I’m there to witness it or not. The mountains remain whether I’m standing among them or thousands of miles away. The trees continue reaching toward the light, and the rivers continue flowing toward the sea.

And when I spend time with these things, something in me relaxes. I begin to remember that being part of something larger doesn’t require me to be in charge of it.

I can belong to something without keeping it standing. I can be connected without performing. I can be present without predicting.

Perhaps that’s why nature feels like faith to me. Not faith as certainty, but faith as relationship. Not faith as proof, but faith as trust, that relationship remains possible even when outcomes are uncertain.

And maybe that’s why other people find that same confidence in other places.

Some people find it in music, in the way a melody holds their emotions without needing them to explain, in the way harmony reminds them they’re part of something larger than their individual voice.

Some people find it in movement, in dance or running or swimming, in the rhythm of breath and motion that reminds them their body knows things their mind forgets.

Some find it in creativity, in making something that didn’t exist before, in discovering they can bring something into being without knowing exactly how it will turn out.

Some people find it in spiritual practice, in prayer or meditation or ritual, in words or silence that connect them to something they trust beyond themselves.

And some find it in relationships, in the experience of being known well enough that they no longer need to perform, in the experience of being loved on days when they don’t feel particularly impressive.

However we find it, I think that confidence often comes when we feel connected enough to stop trying to engineer every outcome. Connected enough to trust that we’re not facing the unknown alone. Connected enough to believe that letting go won’t mean disappearing.

The process reminds me of teaching people to float on their backs in water who don’t know how to swim. At first, many people are nervous. They don’t know what will happen if they stop moving.

Their muscles tighten, their arms work harder, their breath becomes shallow. They try to hold themselves above the water as though letting go might cause them to sink.

But eventually, usually in a safe place with someone nearby, they release a little effort. They let their head rest. They allow the water to hold them, and they discover something astonishing.

They don’t disappear. The very thing they feared might destroy them becomes the thing that allows them to rest.

And maybe that’s not just about water. How often are we so busy trying to keep everything from falling that we never discover what might already be supporting us?

What freedom might be waiting on the other side of what we’re most afraid to release?

Letting go isn’t abandoning responsibility. It’s noticing the difference between what we can influence and what we’ve been exhausting ourselves trying to hold up.

It doesn’t ignore danger or pretend outcomes don’t matter. It simply asks whether constant tension has been keeping us safe or just keeping us busy.

Trust doesn’t promise that nothing will hurt. It allows us to stop abandoning ourselves before anything has happened.

That’s what I’m still learning, not because nothing can hurt me, but because I’ve learned that I can survive what I cannot predict.

And because I suspect that whatever holds the ocean and the mountains might also be able to hold me, even when I don’t know exactly how to hold myself.