You already know what you need to let go of. The question is why you can't let go of things when holding on costs you more than it gives back.
Maybe it's a job you outgrew. A friendship that runs on obligation. A habit that takes the edge off, or a form of yourself you built to survive.
You've decided to stop or change it more than once, and it's still here.
You Kept Doing It, Because It Worked For You
What you're holding onto is still here because it worked once. It kept you safe, and then it became how you stayed safe.
- Staying in the job paid the bills.
- Keeping quiet got you out of an argument.
- Being the one who is always fine meant nobody worried about you, and nobody asked questions you didn't want to answer.
- The habit took the edge off a hard day.
Big or small, each one solved a real problem.
Then the situation changed. The money got easier, or the person left, or you grew up. But you never looked at the behavior again.
Why Deciding to Stop Doesn't Work
Relief Teaches You to Keep Holding On
What you got back from holding on was relief, and relief is a strong teacher. Researchers who study fear have documented this for decades. Every time you avoid the thing you're afraid of, the relief you feel afterward teaches your body that avoiding it was necessary. So the next time, the pull to avoid is stronger, not weaker.
Deciding Doesn't Overwrite What Your Body Learned
What you're holding onto isn't stored as an opinion. When you decide to let it go, you're not changing your mind about a preference. You're arguing with a file your body marked as "this keeps me safe."
Research on how fear actually changes shows that the old learning doesn't get erased. A new experience has to be built alongside it and compete with it, which takes more than a decision and more than one try, so if you've tried and it didn't stick, nothing is wrong with you. The research is from Michelle Craske and colleagues at UCLA, psychologists who study how fear is learned and treated.
What I'm Letting Go Of
I'm letting go of my life in Arizona and moving back to Wichita, Kansas, where I was raised, after decades of living away.
I left Wichita for college and never lived there again. My parents were there, along with two of my three sisters and many aunts, uncles, and cousins, so I went back often for holidays and gatherings. My father always wanted me to move home, and he tried to entice (bribe!) me in the most interesting ways, yet the reasons I left remained. I came from a strong family where the focus was on the family identity, not individual identity, and I was the baby, going along to get along, with no sense of what mattered to me. Living somewhere else gave me privacy, big city living, and a life where no one scrutinized or judged my choices, and for a long time it was what I needed.
Over the years, I debated moving back. Who would I be in Wichita? Would I still be seen as the baby sister? Would I lose myself in the expectations of others? Would I regret moving there, or regret not living there? Our Lebanese community gathers for every wedding, funeral, illness, crisis, and celebration. That steady support is a real gift, and one I took for granted, because I was so desperate for privacy that the constant presence of others felt constrictive and even intrusive.
My father came to the United States in 1950 and built a beautiful life. He never fully came to terms with not moving back to Lebanon. He used to say, "It's hard to have your heart in two places," and our hearts were still in Wichita, which we called home decades after we had left. My sister Laura also left Wichita, and we often talked through that same struggle.
In time, both of my parents passed, along with my grandparents, aunts, and uncles. My niece Anna had moved back to Wichita, and when Laura decided to move back too, I had no one on the West Coast anymore. I had also left a long-term relationship two years earlier, and it had taken a huge toll on me, so between the two, I felt untethered and lonelier than I had ever been. I have meaningful, supportive friendships in Arizona, but I realized I was missing the community Wichita gives me.
The summer Laura moved, I spent six weeks in Wichita to immerse myself in what it had to offer. I saw old friends, tried different CrossFit gyms, spent time with family, including my 91-year-old godmother, whom I adore, and ran into people I knew virtually everywhere. Feeling familiar to other people gave me a comfort I didn't realize I lacked. I quietly asked a realtor to send me listings, but I knew the move was still a few years off, because leaving my relationship had taken three moves in 15 months, and I didn't have the bandwidth to do it again anytime soon.
Near the end of my stay, it clicked, and I knew it was time to move home. What the hell am I doing in Arizona anyway? I have no family there, I can do my work anywhere, and my friendships can continue. Laura had struggled for years about moving back too, and she told me, "When it's time, you will know." She was right, and I knew I was ready for the peace, safety, and security my Wichita community gives me.
I dreaded the drive back to Arizona. My life there felt so empty, and Wichita felt so full of life and living. As I drove away from the city, I said, "Angels, please get me home and make this seamless." Less than a week after I got back, I had a contract on a house in Wichita, and when I listed my Arizona house soon after, I had a cash contract eight days later.
The move itself is exhausting. I was dreading starting over with all the service people who make my life in Arizona run smoothly, but the same family and community I once found intrusive have sent me referral after referral for everything I need.
Letting go of my familiar life in Arizona and pushing through the what-ifs, the fears, and the exhausting process of relocating is worth it. Life is opening up for me in so many ways. My energy is lighter, more positive, and more joyful. My Light Being Soul Specialty is elevated, and I am shining brightly!
The Three Strengths I'm Leaning On to Move Home
Everyone has eight spiritual strengths. I call them your Soul Specialties™, and though everyone has access to all eight, most people spend their lives leading with one or two without ever knowing it.
Three of them are carrying me through my move home, from the decision to go to the exhausting move itself, and you have the same three for whatever you are letting go of.
Intuition: How I Knew It Was Time to Move Home
I debated moving home for years, and weighing what I would give up against what I would gain never gave me an answer. My intuition gave me one when it clicked in Wichita.
Your intuition doesn't reason its way to an answer the way weighing pros and cons does. It tells you what is right for you at that time, and it works on exactly the kind of question that has no evidence on either side: whether to leave, whether to stay, whether this person is good for you.
An answer like that is easy to put off, because it doesn't come with proof. You can think about a decision like this for years without getting any closer. The real proof you are waiting for won't exist until after you've made the decision.
You can use it on purpose. When you catch yourself building the case again, stop and ask what you would do if you never had to explain the decision to anyone. Whatever comes back in the first second or two is your answer, and you can usually feel yourself starting to argue with it a moment later.
Empathy: Feeling How Much Stress I'm Carrying
My move comes with so many details to organize and people to coordinate, and my Empathy lets me feel how much stress I'm carrying.
Empathy lets you feel what other people feel, sometimes even their aches and pains. It works on your own feelings too, but most of us notice everyone else's first.
A big change like a move affects the people around you too, and it is easy to take their feelings on and carry them as your own. Do that for long enough and you stop being able to tell your own stress apart from the stress you are carrying for somebody else.
When the stress builds, stop and ask whose it is. If it's yours, take care of it. If it belongs to somebody else, say their name out loud and ask what that person has actually told you, because most of the time you'll find you have been carrying both sides of a conversation they were never having.
Healer: Taking Care of Myself Through the Move
Since I decided to move home, I've been giving myself the kind of care I would make sure a friend got, with more water, massage, extra energy tune-ups, and more downtime.
Most of us already give that kind of care to other people. We take the late phone call, organize the meals when somebody gets sick, and sit with a person who is falling apart without trying to fix them.
Letting go asks you to do it for yourself, and that is usually where it breaks down. Being the one who is always fine stops anybody from offering it back to you, and nobody asks how you are because you have never given them a reason to.
Ask what you would do for a friend in your position, and then do one thing on that list for yourself.
What Does Letting Go Actually Feel Like?
It feels worse before it feels better, which catches people off guard. The relief you got from holding on stops the moment you let go, nothing replaces it for a while, and it's easy to read that gap as proof you made a mistake.
Then the pull comes back. It tends to show up when you are tired, stressed, or standing in the same kitchen where you used to give in, and it can be every bit as strong as before. That isn't the old habit winning. The new learning you are building only holds in the situations where you have practiced it, so the first few times it gets tested somewhere new, it loses.
There is usually grief, even when what you put down was bad for you, because it worked once, and you're allowed to be sad about that without it meaning you were wrong.
It also doesn't end with a moment. Nothing announces that you are finished; it just takes up less room, until one day you notice you haven't thought about it in a week.
Try the Small Version First
Say no to one thing you don't really want to do.
A small no lets you practice at low stakes and feel the whole sequence: the resistance before, the discomfort right after, and the fact that nothing bad happened.
Notice what you do with the time you got back, and notice the resistance, too. Name what it's protecting, out loud if you can, even alone in the car, because putting a feeling into words measurably lowers the body's alarm response.
The bigger version is the same move on the job, the friendship, or the habit you've held onto longer than it's helped you. There's no timeline on that. You'll know when you are ready to let go of something bigger.
How Do I Identify My Soul Specialties™?
The ones you can name yourself are usually the ones other people have thanked you for over the years. The rest are harder to spot on your own, because a strength you have always had doesn't feel like a strength; it feels like the ordinary way you do things.
The free assessment takes about 5 minutes and scores all eight, so you can see which ones you lead with and which ones have been running quietly in the background. There is no pass mark, nothing to buy at the end, and you don't need it to do any of the above.
Julie Farha
Intuitive personal coach, author of Tangible Intuition, and creator of Soul Specialties. Read Julie's story