Letting Go of What No Longer Serves You: Creating Space for Growth

In the journey through mid-life, one of the most powerful transformations comes not from acquiring more, but from letting go. We often think that fulfillment is about adding more—more achievements, more experiences, more things—but sometimes, the key lies in releasing what no longer serves us. Letting go is not about giving up or pushing away, hiding, denying, or repressing. It's about accepting that something no longer serves you and no longer attaching to that thing. We can let go of physical things, we can let go of relationships, we can let go of ways of life, of judgments about other people, and of belief patterns, to name a few. It is an excellent 'muscle' to develop, because it allows us to make space for something new to take its place.

There is a fundamental challenge to it that I and many others struggle or have struggled with, though. We see the words everywhere, in most of the realms of self-help. “Just let go”… Easy enough, right? Nope. Why is this?

Death.

It’s such a hard thing to deal with and culturally, we suck at it. We avoid it in every way we possibly can because it’s terrifying to us. Letting go, at its core, means accepting the end of something. The end of a relationship, the end of an identity, the end of a phase of life. And that end is, in a way, a small death. We aren’t just saying goodbye to the thing itself, but also to the version of ourselves that was attached to it.

Take relationships, for example. Letting go of a toxic friendship or romantic relationship isn’t just about saying goodbye to the person. It’s also about releasing the part of you that depended on that relationship for validation, for comfort, or for a sense of belonging. There’s a death there—a death of the ‘you’ who needed that. And death, even in small doses, stirs fear in us. It requires us to face the unknown, to be okay with not knowing what comes next, to trust that letting go will lead to something better or, at the very least, to more authenticity.

Another layer to this is how our culture glorifies accumulation and control. We’re taught that having more—whether it’s material wealth, achievements, relationships, or even just a firm grip on our emotions—equates to success. Letting go flies in the face of that. It’s an act of surrender, and surrender is often seen as weakness. But the truth is, letting go takes incredible strength. It’s choosing to release the illusion of control, to acknowledge that we can’t force everything to go the way we want. It’s trusting that by loosening our grip, we’ll find freedom.

And then there’s the grieving process that comes with letting go. Grief isn’t just about losing a loved one; it’s the natural response to any kind of ending. When we let go, we need to allow ourselves to grieve—to feel the sadness, the emptiness, even the fear. This is what makes letting go so hard. It’s not just about deciding to be done with something; it’s about moving through the emotional waves that follow, letting ourselves fully experience the discomfort so that we can eventually reach acceptance.

Letting go is a skill, and like any skill, it takes practice. We can start small. Maybe it’s letting go of a piece of clutter that’s been sitting in the back of your closet for years, or maybe it’s letting go of the need to be right in a minor disagreement. Each time we practice, we strengthen that muscle. We start to see that letting go doesn’t mean we’re left with nothing; it means we’re creating space—space for new opportunities, new relationships, new ways of being that align more closely with who we truly are.

So, why let go? Because holding on to things that no longer serve us keeps us stuck. It keeps us in a past version of ourselves, in an outdated story. Letting go is about embracing change, embracing growth, and ultimately embracing life in its truest, fullest form. It’s about trusting that what’s meant for us will find us, and that sometimes, the best way to move forward is to simply release our grasp and allow the current to take us somewhere new.

The universe itself is built on the concept of life and death. Without this natural cycle, there would be no evolution, no growth—everything would remain stagnant and flat. Miracles happen when death occurs, because life always follows, often in ways we could never have imagined before. Letting go is not the end; it is the beginning of something new, a chance for transformation, and a reminder that life, in all its forms, is constantly renewing itself.