When you’ve been wronged by someone else, it hurts. Even when a total stranger wrongs you, it’s troubling. Why did they do that to me? What did I do to deserve that? Experiencing these emotions and feelings is normal. But struggling to let go of them long after something happens can be harmful to your physical and emotional health.
Letting things go doesn’t come easily or naturally for everyone. Fortunately, there are several actions you can take that can help you take control of the negative emotions you may be experiencing and stop them from causing further harm.
How Not Letting Go Hurts You
To be clear, having or experiencing negative emotions isn’t a bad thing. Negative emotions such as grief, anxiety, or even anger have a place in our lives. They tell us when we’re being hurt, when we need to set healthy boundaries in our relationships, or that something isn’t quite right.
While negative emotions help us make sense of painful feelings, holding onto those negative emotions can hold you back from healing and damage your mental health and relationships.
Prevents Healing
Holding onto emotional pain makes it much harder for you to heal and move forward. When all you can do is think about how angry or hurt you are, you’re never quite able to move past what happened, and your well-being may suffer.
Harms Your Psychological Well-Being
The longer you hold on to your negative emotions, the more likely it is you’ll suffer additional psychological harm. For example, feeling grief or anger when a long-term relationship ends is natural. But if you don’t let go of those painful feelings, you may experience rage, which could damage your existing or even future relationships.
What’s more, holding on to these painful experiences can harm your self-esteem. When you’re constantly dwelling on what happened and why it happened, you may start to think you’re at fault. If only you had done X or hadn’t done Y, things might be different.
Damages Your Physical Health
In addition to mental health concerns, not letting go can damage your physical health.
A 2021 study looked at the relationship between negative thoughts and physical health and found that being in a “persistent negative mood” could:
- Cause chronic inflammation in an otherwise healthy individual, which can increase depressive symptoms.
- Create higher levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a clinical marker of inflammation. In women, elevated CRP is a significant predictor of poor heart health and heart attack risk.
- Negatively impact sleep, substance use, or eating patterns.
9 Ways to Let Things Go
Letting things go can improve your mental and physical health, but actually letting things go can be easier said than done. Here are nine practical tips to help you overcome painful experiences, let go of negativity, and move forward.
1. Release Your Expectations
Start by releasing your expectations and the expectations of others. Much like grieving the death of a loved one, learning how to let go is an intensely personal process. Everyone “gets over it” at their own pace, and it will take as long as it takes.
Give yourself the self-compassion you need to let go of your emotional pain and move forward on your timeline. As long as you are working toward your goals and trying to let go, you’re making progress, and that’s what matters.
2. Make Space for Negative Emotions
Avoiding painful feelings because they are painful sounds like a good plan for letting go. But ultimately, it won’t help you heal. A significant step in letting go means feeling those feelings. Without that step, we’ll carry the negativity with us wherever we go, making it challenging to let go and move on.
For example, crying helps us physically release our sadness, fear, or anger. Once we’ve taken that step and physically let go of those emotions, we’ve cleared some mental space in our heads to start healing.
3. Get Some Perspective
While it’s important to acknowledge what’s happened and how you’re feeling, it’s equally important to recognize that ruminating and constantly thinking negative thoughts can skew your perspective. When we’re anxious, nervous, or upset, our emotional well-being is compromised, and we start thinking about the worst-case scenario. While this is a normal reaction, it doesn’t help you let go.
When you find yourself ruminating about something, stop and ask yourself:
- How much will this matter to me tomorrow? Next week? Next year?
- What skills do I have to solve this problem?
- How have I coped with something like this in the past?
- What skills do I have right now to cope with this?
You may be surprised by the answers, and once you have some perspective, you’ll be able to let go of the situation more easily.
4. Turn the Negative Into a Positive
Negative self-talk can also make it difficult to let go of things and experience the personal growth we want and need. When you find yourself engaging in negative self-talk, try flipping the script and turning the negative into a positive mantra to remind yourself of everything that’s going well.
For example, if a friend is ghosting you, remind yourself that you have a wide circle of friends who still count on you for your honesty and helpful advice. Repeating this mantra a few times can help you remember that while this one friend has disappeared, your life is still full of friendship.
5. Create Physical Space
In some cases, you may need to create physical space to help you let go of negative feelings. For example, if you and your partner had a terrible fight that led to your breakup at a specific coffee shop, avoid going there until you’ve processed your feelings and let go of the negative ones.
Creating physical space can also mean staying away from social media. Constantly checking on someone else’s posts can be upsetting and make it difficult for you to move forward.
6. Focus on You
When you’re working through your emotional pain, it can be easy to focus on the other person or people who may have wronged you and how they hurt you. It’s important to acknowledge that someone else’s actions or words caused your pain, but making them the focus of your healing won’t help you let go, move on, and heal.
Instead of thinking about the other person, focus on you. What are the steps you can take to ensure you aren’t hurt again? How does talking about what the other person did help you? What do you need to do to heal and let go?
7. Practice Mindfulness
When you think of practicing mindfulness, you may think of meditating. While it’s true that being mindful can include meditation, when you practice mindfulness, you’re focusing on the present moment, not the past or future.
Being in the now helps you focus on the things you can control (the present moment) and less on the things you can’t control or change (like the past). Over time, being mindful can help you focus on what’s going well in your daily life and help you let go of the negative emotions and feelings that are bound to bubble up when they aren’t.
8. Let Go of Apologies
When someone has wronged you, you may find it difficult to let go of an apology. Whether the wrong or harm was intentional or not, you may focus on the idea that you’re entitled to an apology. And you may very well be entitled to an apology, but to heal, you likely need to let go of the idea that you’ll ever get an apology and embrace that reality.
No matter how much you want an apology or how many times you ask for one, the other party may never accept that they should apologize for their words or actions. Holding on to the hope that they will see their error and give you a sincere, meaningful apology won’t help you let go of the original wrong and heal. Letting go of that need — no matter how hard — helps you move past what happened and start the healing process.
9. Discuss What Happened
Talking about what happened or how you’re feeling may make you uncomfortable, but doing so with someone you trust can help you process an overwhelming jumble of emotions and take control of your feelings.
The trick is to talk about your struggles without complaining or trauma dumping, as these behaviors may only reinforce the negative emotions you’re experiencing.
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Talk to a Therapist
Finally, if you’ve tried all these tips to let go of things and are still having trouble, consider seeking professional help from a qualified mental health professional. They can help you process your feelings, get some perspective on your struggles, and teach you how to practice self-compassion while you heal.
The team of caring, compassionate therapists at Anchor Light Couples and Family Therapy is here to help you take control of your negative emotions and learn how to let go of them. Schedule your free consultation today.
