Before Letting Go

Making Space to Make Change

“I can tell your future

Look what’s in your hand.”

-Robert Hunter, Bob Weir (Grateful Dead)

Smokers have their cigarettes. Musicians have their instruments. And children who were left to fend for themselves hold their independence like a shield.

Just as a dowsing rod moves in response to where the dowser already believes to be the location of the water, what we hold onto does not point the way to what is next, it shows us that tomorrow will likely be the same as today. The person who is “trying to quit smoking” is still a smoker until the cigarettes are let go.

Life isn’t that simple. We hold on to some intangible things for so long that we forget they are nothing but habits, adaptations, or coping skills we developed in response to the hurts and fears of our youth.

For me, I’ve been holding onto an absurd idea: that I’m still the same as I ever was just because my medical outcome was so positive with no physical restrictions.

Or better yet, that for all the physical and mental work, I am not only healthier and happier today, but that I can continue to live in the way that brought me to the operating table for emergency quintuple bypass surgery.

Something to Prove

I have been trying to prove it all out in this first year of recovery.

That I actively exercise.

That I have achieved a new, healthier state of mind.

That I can lead my business to new growth.

That I can disconnect from work and be fully present with loved ones.

That this massive disruption has only changed me for the better.

While at the same time,

Prove that I can handle the same amount of stress.

Prove that I can drink like I used to.

Prove that I can still burn the candle at both ends.

Prove that the Lone Wolf inside me deserves to still live there.

It’s exhausting. And heavy.

For all of that effort, I proved only that I am not strong enough to hold on to both the life I was living and the healthier happier version of myself growing inside me. No one is either that strong or that big; our bodies are only big enough to contain one person.

And still, I’m holding on

To the worry that I am broken.

To fear of rejection.

To the walls I built around my vulnerability

To seeking validation from others more than intrinsic satisfaction.

And then this line found me:

“It’s a hard load to carry the weight of the worry in your mind. Take it down to the water, throw your stones in the ocean. May all your troubles wash away.”

-Reed Foehl

Learning to Let Go

Recovery, I’m learning, isn’t about returning to who I was.

It begins with forgiving myself for the ways I’ve kept hurting myself along the way. For clinging on to damaging habits. For the grudges I’ve carried long past their usefulness. For the moments I let my fears make me act sharp, distant, or unkind to myself and others.

And for all the energy I spent maintaining a curated identity that changed with what I thought people wanted to see, and never felt fully honest on the inside.

That kind of forgiveness isn’t soft or weak. It is hard, strong, and necessary.

Forgiveness is freeing.

Because it’s the end of punishment.

And everywhere I have stopped punishing myself, my grip loosens and I feel the calloused hurts, the paralyzing anxiety, the simmering anger, the lingering doubts, slipping from my hands.

That’s where permission has made its beautiful entrance in my life.

Permission to let go of behaviors, patterns, and emotions disguised as personality traits.

Permission to open my now empty hands to replace resistance with willingness. Permission to feel the fear of change while embracing what is to come.

We are not Ebenezer Scrooge and we do not live in A Christmas Carol. For me, however, in many ways this year, the ghosts of my past, present and future showed up for a difficult self-reckoning that led me to this:

Positive change—growth—is freely available when we set down the hard loads (forgiveness) and give ourselves permission (acceptance) to pick up the perspectives, attitudes, and behaviors that lead us to greater health and happiness.

If you’re thinking about making a change in 2026, before you begin, look at your hands. Forgive yourself for what you’re holding, give yourself permission to let it go, and make space for growth.