Letting go is not forgetting. It is not pretending it didn't matter. It is the slow, daily decision to stop carrying something that has become heavier than it is worth. These ten quotes about letting go come from people who walked through the same fire. Read them slowly. Some of them will sting. The good ones usually do.
You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy. So let them go, let go of them. I tie no weights to my ankles.— C. JoyBell C. The Sun is Snowing (2010)
Notice the test. Not is it good or bad. Just is it heavy. Sometimes the thing was beautiful. It is still heavy now. You are allowed to put it down.
If you can't carry it forward, it is meant to be left here. Heavy is enough of a reason.
The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.— Steve Maraboli Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2009)
Read it slowly. Forgive yourself. Forgive the situation. Realize it is over. Three small steps. Not easy. Just simple. You can do one of them today.
You are not stuck on the situation. You are stuck on not having forgiven yourself for what happened in it.
Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.— Deborah Reber Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul on Tough Stuff (2001)
Caring and clinging are not the same thing. You can love someone and still let them be wrong about you. You can love them and still walk away.
Letting go is the end of trying to control how the other person feels about you. It is not the end of caring.
You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It won't happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, 'I don't care how hard this is, I don't care how disappointed I am, I'm not going to let this get the best of me. I'm moving on with my life.'— Joel Osteen Your Best Life Now (2004)
Moving on is not a wave you ride. It is an oar you pick up. Nobody is going to make the decision for you. The hardest part is realizing nobody is going to.
Healing is not a feeling that arrives. It is a decision you make and remake every morning.
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.— Lewis B. Smedes Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve (1984)
Holding a grudge does not punish them. They are eating dinner. They are watching TV. You are the one re-living it. The grudge is your jail, not theirs.
Forgiveness is not a gift to the other person. It is the key to your own door.
You don't have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you're holding.— Cheryl Strayed Tiny Beautiful Things (2012)
Stop running the math on what should have happened. Should is not a hand you get to play. Look at the cards in front of you. They are the only ones you have. Play them like they matter, because they are the only ones that do.
You can grieve the hand you wanted. You still have to play the one you have.
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.— Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching (c. 6th century BCE)
You are holding on to who you used to be. The version that fit the old life. The role you played in the family. The label someone gave you in eighth grade. Drop it. The new version is waiting.
You cannot become who you are becoming while clinging to who you used to be.
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.— Mary Oliver Wild Geese, from Dream Work (1986)
Read it twice. You don't have to spend the rest of your life apologizing for the part you played. You don't have to drag yourself through the desert to earn the right to keep going. Put down the guilt. Pick up your life.
You are allowed to stop punishing yourself for what already happened.
Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.— Hermann Hesse Siddhartha (1922)
We were taught that holding on is strength. White-knuckling the marriage. The job. The friendship that drains you. Real strength is the open hand. Letting it go without slamming the door behind it.
Strength is not always tight fists. Sometimes it is the open hand.
The past has no power over the present moment.— Eckhart Tolle The Power of Now (1997)
It feels like it does. You feel the weight when you wake up. That is a habit, not a fact. The past is over. It only has power because you keep reading it back to yourself. Stop reading. Start being.
The past only has the power you keep giving it. Stop paying its salary.
Letting go is not a one-time event. It is something you will probably have to do a hundred times over a year for the big things. That is okay. Every time you put the weight down, even for an hour, you are practicing. Practice enough and one day you will look around and realize you forgot to pick it back up.
Save the one that hit you hardest. Come back to it on a hard day. Then keep exploring — read more quotes or read more stories.