In therapeutic, somatic, yoga, and spiritual contexts, the phrase “let it go” is among the most commonly used instructions.
It is said to a person who is contracted, holding an old relationship, unable to stop thinking, crying, or unable to step out of an old reaction.
The intention is usually good.
The result often is not.
“Let it go” is meant to release.
Very often, it creates another task.
A person does not begin to let go.
They begin to search.
What should be let go.
Where it is being held.
Why it is not working.
How to do it correctly.
In this way, release becomes performance.
Subtle, well-meant, sometimes wrapped in spiritual or therapeutic language.
But still performance.
A client sits opposite a practitioner. They say:
I know I should let it go.
From the outside, they may appear cooperative. Inside the body, something else is happening.
Breath remains high.
The eyes look for the right answer.
The chest carries pressure.
The pelvis touches the seat, but does not settle.
The neck holds the question of how to do it.
If “let it go” is said at this moment, the organism may not perceive it as relief.
It receives another assignment.
And begins trying to “let it go”.
This is where the difference appears between a sentence that opens space and a sentence that creates another demand in the body.
“Let it go” aims at the will, understanding, or decision.
But the organism usually does not hold a thing.
It holds a way of organising.
It holds breath.
It holds tone.
It holds orientation.
It holds the pelvis.
It holds the chest.
It holds the neck.
It holds the eyes.
It holds the possibility of remaining functional.
A person may understand their story and still remain in the same bodily configuration.
They may have insight.
They may name the pattern.
They may understand where the reaction comes from.
And the body still does not reorganise.
The person then begins producing release.
The breath deepens.
The shoulders soften.
The face changes.
The voice becomes softer.
The person tries to be more open, calmer, more conscious.
From the outside, it may look good.
Inside, however, a new supervision often appears.
The body does not lay down its holding.
It is fulfilling another instruction.
It holds a regulatory configuration.
What a therapist, practitioner, or teacher often sees as “holding” may be the organism’s last available support.
A contracted solar plexus may be a way not to fall into helplessness.
Held breath may be a way to keep contact under control.
Lifted shoulders may be an attempt to carry a world that cannot be borne elsewhere in the body.
A tense neck may be the last orienting pillar.
A rigid pelvis may be a form of survival, not an error.
If we tell a person “let it go” without the organism having another support, we are often asking it to do the impossible.
And sometimes the dangerous.
The body will not release defence simply because someone has labelled it old.
It will not release control simply because the head has understood its origin.
It will not release tension simply because the practitioner has recognised that it is no longer needed.
The body lets go only when the inner equation changes.
When support is no longer only above.
When weight can return downward.
When breath does not have to be controlled.
When the pelvis does not have to be an object of work.
When the eyes can orient without alarm.
When relationship with another person does not create another demand.
Then something may release.
Not as the result of effort.
As the consequence of new conditions.
At a certain stage of the process, the direction “let go” may be true.
Sometimes the organism really does need to stop holding an old reaction.
Sometimes pressure from the chest needs to stop rising into the head.
Sometimes the pelvis needs to stop being a contracted knot of defence.
Sometimes a person no longer needs to hold the past in every inhalation.
But direction is not the same as instruction.
Instruction says: do it.
Direction shows where the organism may begin to reorganise, if the conditions are present.
“Let it go” as instruction aims at the will.
A direction toward release is not inserted into the organism as a command. It emerges through support, orientation, time, pelvis, relation to the ground, a reduction of secondary performance, and language that does not create further pressure.
For the organism, a formulation without performance demand sounds like this:
We do not lead a person to let something go.
We lead the organism into conditions where it no longer has to hold in the same way.
That is the difference between instruction and accompaniment.
Instruction aims at the will.
Accompaniment changes the conditions of regulation.
The following protocols are not instructions on how to let something go.
They are examples of how to create conditions in which holding may begin to change by itself.
This format is a basic therapeutic situation.
The client is sitting and says, for example:
I know I should let it go.
I understand it now.
I do not want to hold it.
But it does not work.
At such a moment, further understanding usually does not help.
The body has often heard enough interpretations.
Now it needs less task and more bearing capacity.
A more precise first step is to interrupt the concept:
For a moment, I would leave aside the question of what exactly you are supposed to let go.
Then the person can be returned to ordinary sitting:
Notice that you are sitting.
Not meditatively.
Not correctly.
Simply sitting.
Ordinariness matters.
It protects the process from spiritual performance.
Then we let the body register the support of sitting:
Notice the contact of the seat.
Do not look for symmetry.
Just contact.
Then the pelvis:
The pelvis does not have to do anything.
It does not have to open.
It does not have to release.
It is enough that it is part of sitting.
Here, it often becomes visible whether the person is in contact with the pelvis, or whether they are sitting mainly with the chest, neck, and head.
Then the chest:
Notice whether the chest is still carrying something by itself.
You do not have to relax it.
Just notice that it is part of what the body is carrying right now.
Then the neck and head:
The head does not have to find the solution.
The neck does not have to hold the answer.
Only then can a direction be spoken:
Perhaps this is not about letting something go.
Perhaps it is about the body no longer having to hold contact with the world so expensively.
Then pause.
Without explanation.
Without the immediate question “what do you feel”.
Without pressure for a result.
This format is suitable when a person is standing, activated, wanting to “let something go”, but the body moves into performance.
Tension is often visible in the legs, chest, jaw, eyes, or upper body.
First, the task is removed:
Do not let go of anything now.
Just notice that you are standing.
Then the body is returned to the ground:
Notice the feet.
Do not correct your posture.
Just notice where the ground touches the body.
We do not immediately use the word “ground yourself”.
Feet are more concrete.
Then performance in the legs is softened:
The knees do not have to be so decided.
They do not have to hold you by force.
Then the pelvis:
You do not have to set the pelvis.
Do not push it forward.
Do not tuck it under.
Just notice that it is between the legs and the trunk.
Only here can the first subtle direction appear:
Can the pelvis know a little more about the ground?
This is not an instruction to move.
It is an invitation to relationship.
We leave the breath alone:
Do not correct the breath.
Do not deepen it.
The body does not have to breathe better in order to let something go.
Only then can a regulating sentence be placed:
You do not have to find what is supposed to be let go.
It is enough if the body holds itself a little less.
And then it is necessary to be silent.
Let it stand.
Do not complete it for the body.
Do not explain what is supposed to happen.
Sometimes neither standing nor sitting is appropriate anymore.
A person is tired, overloaded, tearful, after a strong process, after intensive practice, or after a long period of control. In such a situation, further guidance may be another demand.
Then it is more precise to let the body move from holding into being borne:
Lie down in such a way that the ground truly bears you.
Do not look for an ideal position.
Only for a position in which the body does not have to work so much.
Then the back surface of the body:
Notice the places where the body touches the surface beneath it.
The back of the head.
Shoulder blades.
Back.
Sacrum.
Thighs.
Heels.
Then the sacrum:
Notice the sacrum.
You do not have to relax it.
It is enough that it touches the surface beneath it.
Then breath:
You do not have to lengthen the exhale.
Just notice whether it ever goes a little further by itself.
And then direction:
The body does not have to let go of anything.
It can be borne for a while.
When getting up, it is important not to return the person immediately into the head:
When you get up, do not get up straight from the head.
First let the body find the side, the ground, the hand, the knees, the feet.
In this way, the process integrates into orientation, not into experience.
In a group, the sentence “let it go” is even more risky, because the group amplifies pressure to show something.
Some people really begin to feel something.
Some begin to produce something.
Some move into performance.
Some disconnect or freeze because they do not know what is correct.
In a group, language therefore has to be even more precise.
Instead of:
Let it go.
one can say:
Do not search for what you are supposed to let go.
Just notice that the body is here.
Feet.
Ground.
Weight.
Breath without correction.
The pelvis does not have to do anything.
The chest does not have to open anything.
What can release will release by itself, if the body has the conditions for it.
Here, the practitioner does not give the group a task.
They set the field.
The question “where do you hold it?” can sometimes be useful.
If it comes too early, the person begins to look for an object in the body. The searching itself can increase tension.
It is more precise first to read the whole organisation.
Breath.
Weight.
Eyes.
Pelvis.
Chest.
Neck.
The overall capacity to remain in contact.
The instruction “breathe it out” is also very common.
Sometimes it helps.
Often it creates controlled breathing.
The person begins to produce an exhale that is supposed to carry something away. Breath then becomes an instrument of will, instead of the expression of a new organisation of the body.
More precise:
Let the exhale find its own length.
Or even more simply:
Do not correct the breath.
As soon as the practitioner too quickly says:
that is the mother
that is trauma
that is defence
that is distrust
it may be partly true.
But the organism often receives a new meaning before it has enough support.
Then the person does not begin to regulate.
They begin to understand.
And understanding may become another form of holding.
Actual letting go is not performance.
It is not a decision.
It is not a gesture.
It is not a dramatic exhale.
It is not an emotional breakthrough.
It is not the ability to say “I am letting it go now.”
Actual release looks less impressive.
The body settles a little more.
The eyes stop looking for the answer.
The breath stops correcting itself.
The neck does not have to hold the head alone.
The pelvis turns from an object of work into a space of support.
The chest no longer has to carry the whole story.
For a moment, the person does not know anything, but does not fall apart.
This is how the beginning of actual release usually appears from the outside.
Not a great declaration.
Not a spiritual conclusion.
Not a therapeutic success.
Only a change in how the organism bears reality.
Some situations begin to change only when the organism finally no longer has to hold them as a problem.
“Let it go” is often too absolute a sentence.
It aims straight at the result, but misses the conditions in which the result could arise.
The body does not let go because it has received the correct instruction.
It does not let go because it has understood the interpretation.
It does not let go because it is trying to be more conscious, more spiritual, or more therapeutically cooperative.
It lets go when it no longer has to hold.
And this usually does not happen through another instruction.
It happens through support, time, safety, orientation, breath without control, pelvis without performance, contact without pressure, and language that does not demand an immediate response.
For this reason, in the SMANS approach we do not lead a person to let something go.
We lead the organism into conditions in which it no longer has to hold in the same way.
A more precise formulation then is not:
let it go
but:
You do not have to let it go.
It is enough for the body to receive conditions in which it will no longer have to hold it.