How I Learned to Let Go Without Losing Myself

For a long time, I thought letting go meant giving up.
When people said, “You need to move on,” I heard, “You’ve failed.”
So, I held on — to people, to memories, to versions of myself that no longer fit. I held on until my hands hurt.

I grew up believing that loyalty meant endurance. My mother used to say, “If something matters, you fight for it.” And I did. I fought for friendships that had lost their warmth, for love that no longer loved me back, for jobs that drained me more than they fulfilled me. I told myself this was strength.

But strength, I later learned, can turn into stubbornness.

It happened during one winter in Edinburgh. The days were short and cold, and I had just come out of a long relationship. I told myself I was fine, that I just needed time. But time didn’t heal much when I kept replaying everything that had gone wrong.

My flat felt too quiet, the bed too big. I filled my evenings with noise — music, television, long walks through the city — anything to avoid silence. Because silence reminded me of what I’d lost.

One night, while walking near the old bridge, I stopped to watch the water below. It moved steadily, carrying fallen leaves downstream. I wondered how the river could keep flowing when it had to let go of everything it touched.

That thought stayed with me.

Letting go, I realised, wasn’t about forgetting or pretending something never mattered. It was about learning to hold it differently — gently, without breaking yourself in the process.

So, I began to practice.

I started with small things.
I deleted old messages I had been too afraid to erase. I returned gifts that had lost their meaning. I stopped checking social media to see how he was doing. Every act of letting go felt like pulling out a thorn I had been carrying quietly.

Then came the harder part — letting go of the version of me that needed to be needed.
I had built my worth around being someone else’s anchor. When that anchor wasn’t required anymore, I felt lost. Who was I if I wasn’t fixing, helping, or saving?

One morning, I sat in a small café near the Royal Mile. It was raining outside, and a woman at the next table was reading a book titled The Art of Stillness. The title caught me. I wrote it down in my notebook.

That night, I tried to sit in stillness. No phone, no distractions. Just me and my thoughts. It was uncomfortable — almost unbearable at first. But then something strange happened. I started to hear myself again. Beneath all the noise, there was a quiet voice that said, “You don’t have to hold everything.”

Over time, I realised that letting go isn’t a single act. It’s a long, gentle conversation with yourself.
It’s forgiving the past without needing closure.
It’s allowing things to end without turning them into enemies.
It’s remembering what happened without letting it define you.

Months passed. The winter turned into spring. I walked through Princes Street Gardens one morning and noticed the cherry blossoms beginning to bloom. For the first time in a while, I smiled without forcing it.

I met new people, slowly, naturally. I laughed again — not to prove I was fine, but because I actually was. I learned that healing doesn’t mean forgetting what broke you. It means finding beauty in the cracks.

One day, while cleaning my flat, I found an old photograph of me and my ex at the seaside. I looked at it for a long moment. Instead of pain, I felt gratitude. That version of me — the one who loved, who tried, who stayed — had done her best. She deserved kindness too.

So, I placed the photo in a box and whispered, “Thank you.” Then I put it away.

Letting go didn’t erase my past. It just made space for my future.

Now, when I think about that time in my life, I no longer feel the weight of what I lost. I feel the strength of what I learned. I learned that I don’t have to grip so tightly to prove something mattered. I can let go with love, and still remain whole.

The truth is, letting go isn’t about losing anything. It’s about returning — to yourself, to peace, to the quiet certainty that you are enough even when nothing else stays.

I still take walks by the bridge where the river moves steadily beneath the stone. I watch the water carry the leaves away, and I understand now. The river doesn’t hold on, and yet it never loses itself. It just keeps flowing, beautifully and endlessly forward.

And so do I.