The Gentle Art of Letting Go with Love

How gratitude releases what no longer serves you

13-minute read · Originally published 24 October 2025 · Updated 23 October 2026

There are people who remain part of our lives long after the relationship has changed, the conversation has ended or the circumstances that brought us together have passed. Sometimes we remember them with affection, sometimes with sadness, and occasionally with a mixture of feelings that are difficult to explain, even to ourselves.

Perhaps someone disappointed you in a way you never expected. Perhaps a friendship quietly changed, a relationship ended without the understanding you had hoped for, or someone you loved made choices that left you questioning everything you thought you knew about them. You may have continued with your life, attended to your responsibilities and found reasons to be happy, yet certain memories still have the ability to unsettle you.

What can be particularly confusing is that you may no longer want anything from that person. You may not wish to reconnect, revisit the conversation or change what happened. You may even understand why things unfolded as they did. Yet the feelings remain, appearing unexpectedly when you hear a familiar name, visit a particular place or find yourself thinking about something that happened years ago.

We often describe this as holding on, although I wonder whether that expression sometimes makes the experience sound more deliberate than it is. Most people are not consciously choosing to carry disappointment or resentment. They are trying to make sense of an experience that has not yet found a comfortable place in their understanding of themselves and their lives.

Letting go, then, may be less about forcing ourselves to forget and more about becoming willing to understand what we are still carrying.

I have come to believe that gratitude can play a meaningful part in this process, although perhaps not in the way we are usually encouraged to practise it. Rather than asking us to appreciate the person who hurt us or find something positive in an experience that was genuinely painful, gratitude can help us recognise what remains valuable in our lives, what we have learned about ourselves and what we may now choose differently.

It allows us to acknowledge the past without asking it to determine the quality of our future.

The Space Between Pain and Peace

For a long time, I thought healing was about closure. I imagined there would be a conversation in which everything finally made sense, an acknowledgement of what had happened or perhaps an apology that would allow the feelings to settle. I believed that once I understood the reasons behind someone else's choices, I would find it easier to put the experience behind me.

Life has taught me that understanding and acceptance do not always arrive together, and that sometimes the conversation we are waiting for never takes place.

I've had experiences in my own life when I carried feelings longer than I wanted to admit. Not because I wished to remain angry, but because part of me was still trying to reconcile the person I had known with the person I had experienced. I could remember the good moments, recognise the disappointment and still struggle to understand how both could belong to the same story.

What I eventually began to recognise was that my feelings did not need to be neatly resolved before I could begin moving forward. I could acknowledge that something had hurt me without letting that experience occupy so much of my attention, and I could appreciate what had once been good without pretending everything had been good.

Gratitude became an unexpected bridge between those two understandings.

When I began using the "Send Love To" section of my gratitude journal, I discovered that this simple reflection sometimes brought people to mind whom I had not thought about for quite some time. Occasionally, they were people I loved and appreciated. At other times, they were people connected to experiences I was still making sense of.

I noticed I could not always offer a generous thought toward someone who had hurt me, and at first I wondered whether that meant I had more work to do. Over time, I began to see the practice differently. I did not need to manufacture affection or pretend that my feelings had changed. I could begin by acknowledging what was true.

Sometimes I was grateful for a lesson that had taken me years to understand. Sometimes I appreciated the strength it had taken to make a difficult decision, or the boundaries I had learned to establish. On other occasions, I found myself thinking with tenderness about the woman I had been at the time, recognising how much she had been trying to manage with the understanding she had then.

There were also moments when I could remember something good about a person without feeling that I needed to invite them back into my life.

This was an important distinction for me. I began to understand that letting go with love did not require me to change my account of what happened. It meant allowing myself to remember the experience more fully, with honesty about the pain and appreciation for anything genuinely worth keeping.

The change was gradual, and not every reflection left me feeling peaceful. Some brought sadness, others clarity, and occasionally I realised there was still something I needed to understand. But I was no longer asking gratitude to make the experience acceptable. I was allowing it to help me see that my life had continued to hold meaning beyond what had happened.

What Happens When We Keep Replaying the Past?

Have you ever noticed how your body responds when you remember a difficult conversation? You may be sitting quietly, doing something entirely unrelated, when the memory appears, and you find yourself rehearsing what you wish you had said. Before long, your shoulders tighten, your breathing changes, and you mentally prepare an argument with someone who isn't even in the room.

Our thoughts and emotions influence our physiological responses, which is one reason unresolved conflict can feel physically exhausting. Remembering a stressful experience may change muscle tension, breathing, heart rate, and other aspects of the body's stress response, particularly when the memory is accompanied by anger, fear, or a sense of threat.

This does not mean the nervous system cannot distinguish the past from the present. It means our interpretation of a memory can influence how we feel physically in the moment, even when the original event is over.

There is an important difference between reflecting on something to understand it and repeatedly revisiting it without reaching a new understanding. The latter is considered rumination, a pattern of repetitive thinking that can sustain distress and make it harder to shift our attention to the present.

I think many women will recognise this experience, particularly those who are accustomed to considering everyone else's feelings before their own. You may spend considerable time wondering why someone behaved as they did, whether you misunderstood the situation or what you could have done differently. Meanwhile, the question of how the experience affected you receives surprisingly little attention.

Sometimes we become so occupied with understanding another person's behaviour that we overlook our own emotional response.

And perhaps that is where the work of letting go needs to begin.

The Courage to Be Honest About What You Feel

One of the most useful questions I have learned to ask myself is not whether I have forgiven someone, but whether I have been completely honest with myself about how I feel towards them.

There is a difference.

You may tell yourself that you have moved on because the relationship ended years ago, or that you should no longer feel disappointed because you understand the circumstances. You may even feel uncomfortable admitting you are angry with someone you still love, especially if you have always thought of yourself as compassionate or forgiving.

Yet our feelings do not always reflect the person we aspire to be. Sometimes they reflect an experience we have not properly acknowledged.

You can love someone and feel angry with them. You can understand their circumstances and still be disappointed by their choices, appreciate what they contributed to your life, and recognise that their behaviour was unacceptable. These are not contradictions that need to be eliminated. They are different aspects of the same human experience.

Research into emotional awareness offers an interesting perspective here. Affect labelling, the term for putting feelings into words, suggests that identifying emotions can influence activity in brain regions involved in emotional processing and regulation. Some research also suggests that labelling emotional experiences is associated with changes in neural responses, including reduced amygdala activity under the conditions studied. Our amygdala, a small almond-shaped structure in the brain, helps us recognise and respond to emotionally significant experiences, particularly those involving fear or perceived threats, and helps the body initiate our fight-or-flight response. This does not mean that naming an emotion will automatically make it disappear. It suggests that putting words around our experience can help us respond to our feelings with greater awareness, rather than staying caught in the immediate reaction.

For me, this is where journalling becomes particularly valuable. When you write privately, without preparing your words for someone else's reaction, you have an opportunity to notice what you think and feel before deciding what to do with that information. You can acknowledge resentment without acting on it, express disappointment without beginning another argument and recognise sadness without needing to explain why it is still there.

You might discover that what you have been describing as anger is partly grief for a relationship you had hoped would be different. You may realise that your disappointment comes from feeling unimportant, or that the resentment you have carried is connected to a boundary you wish you had set sooner.

Not every emotion requires action, but understanding what you feel can help you make more considered choices about what happens next. And sometimes, the most compassionate thing you can do is allow yourself to tell the truth without immediately trying to make it sound more forgiving.

Gratitude Without Denying What Happened

Gratitude is often presented as a way of focusing on the positive, and there is value in learning to notice what is good in our lives. However, I think this understanding becomes incomplete when we apply it to experiences involving disappointment, betrayal or loss.

If gratitude requires us to minimise what happened, excuse another person's behaviour or search for a lesson before we have had time to understand our feelings, it can become another way of avoiding an uncomfortable truth.

I do not believe we need to be grateful for every experience that changes us. Some experiences are painful and unfair; we have relationships that leave us with questions that may never be answered, and some circumstances require distance, professional support or practical changes rather than a more positive perspective. We can acknowledge these realities and still practise gratitude.

The distinction is that we are not necessarily expressing appreciation for what happened. We may be recognising what has supported us since, what we now understand about ourselves or what remains good in a life that has also contained difficulty.

There is growing evidence that gratitude may contribute to wellbeing, although the benefits identified are generally modest. Neuroscientists have explored what happens in the brain when we experience gratitude, identifying activity in regions associated with social understanding and how we recognise and value our experiences. Expressing gratitude might influence subsequent brain activity, with findings suggesting that gratitude practices may shape how we process emotional experiences.

These studies are interesting because gratitude is more than a pleasant thought or a positive attitude. It is an emotional experience that can be studied through both our psychological responses and brain activity. However, this does not mean that practising gratitude will automatically calm our nervous system, remove resentment or help us forgive someone who has hurt us.

We do not need to replace sadness with appreciation. We can make room for both.

Perhaps its value lies in something more practical. Gratitude can encourage us to broaden our attention beyond what has been difficult, allowing us to recognise what remains meaningful and valuable in our lives without dismissing the feelings we are still working through. We do not need to replace sadness with appreciation. There is room for both.

Forgiveness Does Not Require Reconciliation

One of the reasons letting go can feel difficult is that forgiveness is often confused with reconciliation.

We may worry that forgiving someone means agreeing that their behaviour was acceptable, returning to a relationship that no longer feels healthy or allowing the same circumstances to happen again. When we understand forgiveness this way, resistance can become a reasonable form of self-protection.

But forgiveness and reconciliation are different processes.

Forgiveness generally concerns how we relate to an offence and the feelings it brings up. Reconciliation involves rebuilding a relationship, which requires considering trust, accountability, behaviour, and safety. One can occur without the other, and neither should be forced.

You also don't need to forgive someone before you can make meaningful progress in your own life.

You may decide that forgiveness is personally important, perhaps because of your values, faith or understanding of compassion. Another woman may prefer to focus on acceptance, emotional distance and establishing healthier boundaries. Both approaches can involve deliberate choices about how much influence a past experience still has. There are suggestions that structured forgiveness interventions can reduce some forms of emotional distress, although outcomes vary and the process is more complex than deciding to stop feeling angry.

What I find helpful is separating forgiveness from the expectation that we must feel warmly toward someone who hurt us. Perhaps you are not ready to forgive. You may still be trying to understand what happened, or the relationship remains difficult, and your immediate priority is protecting your wellbeing. There is room for all of these experiences.

Letting go with love can begin with the recognition that you no longer want resentment to guide your decisions, even if you have not decided what forgiveness means to you.

You can wish someone well without wanting them close. You can remember a relationship with affection without wanting to return to it, and you can acknowledge another person's humanity while staying clear about what you will and will not accept.

Compassion and boundaries can exist together.

A Practical Way to Begin Letting Go

Sometimes the most useful place to begin is with a piece of paper and the willingness to be honest about something you have been carrying. You do not need a particular journal or a complicated routine, only a little time to consider what you are feeling and whether there is another way to relate to the experience.

In my 30-Day Gratitude Journal, there is a reflection section called "Send Love To", which invites you to think about where you would like to direct your appreciation, kindness or compassion. Although we often associate sending love with the people we care about, I have found that this practice can also offer a different perspective on relationships and experiences that have been difficult.

Sending love does not mean you must feel affection towards someone who has hurt you, excuse their behaviour or invite them back into your life. Sometimes it means acknowledging that another person has their own life to live while you have yours, recognising that you no longer wish to spend so much time revisiting what happened, or extending a little more understanding towards yourself.

Whether you use a journal, a notebook or a quiet moment to reflect, there are three questions that may help you begin.

Begin with what is true

Think of someone or something that has been occupying your thoughts and ask yourself, What am I still feeling about this experience?

Perhaps you feel disappointed because you trusted someone, angry because your needs were overlooked, or sad because a relationship did not become what you hoped. Allow yourself to acknowledge those feelings without editing them to sound more generous or deciding whether you should have moved on by now.

You may discover that the emotion you have been describing as resentment is also connected to grief, disappointment or a sense of having let yourself down. Giving those feelings an honest description can help you understand what has been occupying your thoughts.

Consider what you understand now

Once you have acknowledged how you feel, consider whether the experience has changed your understanding of yourself, your needs or your relationships.

Perhaps you have recognised the importance of speaking up earlier, paying attention to behaviour rather than promises, and establishing boundaries that protect your wellbeing. You may realise you can care deeply about someone without being responsible for their choices.

There may not be a valuable lesson to take from what happened, and you do not need to invent one. Sometimes understanding simply means recognising that an experience was painful, that you would have preferred things to be different and that you can make different choices moving forward.

Choose where to direct your gratitude or compassion

Now consider: What can I appreciate in my life today, without needing to feel grateful for what happened?

You may remember something genuinely good about a relationship, even if you would not choose to return to it. You might appreciate a friend who supported you through a difficult time, the confidence you have developed since, or the boundaries you now feel more comfortable maintaining.

And perhaps the person who most needs your compassion is you.

You might think about the woman you were when the experience occurred, what she understood at the time and how much she was trying to manage. Rather than criticising her for what she did not recognise sooner, consider offering her the understanding you would extend to someone you love.

If gratitude feels difficult in relation to the experience, direct your attention towards something entirely separate from it. A peaceful moment at home, a meaningful conversation or an ordinary pleasure can remind you that there are other parts of your life worthy of your attention.

Over time, you may notice that your reflections change. A memory that once brought anger may begin to bring sadness, understanding or less emotional intensity. You may find yourself remembering what happened without feeling the same need to revisit every detail.

There is no timetable for this, and some experiences will remain painful. The intention is not to measure how successfully you have forgiven or forgotten, but to develop a clearer understanding of yourself and consider where you would like to direct your attention now.

Perhaps that is where letting go begins. Not with an expectation that we should feel differently about the past, but with the recognition that we can acknowledge what happened while continuing to create a life that reflects who we are today.

There is no timetable for this, and some memories will remain painful. The practice is an invitation to understand yourself, not a test of how successfully you have let go.

When the Body Needs a Moment Too

Emotional reflection is not always comfortable, particularly when we begin writing about something we have avoided for a long time. You may notice your breathing becoming shallow, your jaw tightening, or your thoughts moving faster as you remember a difficult experience.

Rather than pushing yourself to keep going, take a moment to notice what is happening around you. Feel your feet on the floor, look at something familiar in the room, or take a few slow, comfortable breaths. You might make yourself a cup of tea, step outside for some fresh air or return to the reflection another day.

Slow breathing can influence aspects of autonomic nervous system activity, although the effects depend on the individual and the circumstances. It is a practical way to create a pause between an emotional response and what you choose to do next. This is particularly important because we sometimes approach emotional wellbeing as though every difficult feeling needs to be worked through immediately.

There are times when reflection helps us understand an experience, and other times when continuing to revisit it becomes exhausting. Learning to recognise the difference is part of caring for ourselves. You do not need to revisit every painful memory to prove that you are willing to move forward. If reflection brings overwhelming distress or concerns about your safety, additional support from an appropriately qualified mental health professional may be more helpful than continuing alone.

Sometimes the kindest choice is to close the journal, attend to the life in front of you and return when you feel ready.

What Becomes Possible When You Stop Carrying the Same Story?

An interesting question lies beneath the idea of letting go, and it has less to do with the past than with the future.

What would you like to give your attention to now?

When a difficult relationship or experience has occupied a significant part of our thoughts, it can be hard to imagine what life might feel like without continually returning to it. We become accustomed to rehearsing conversations, considering possibilities, and wondering whether things could have been different.

As those thoughts take up less of our attention, we may discover other parts of life asking to be considered. Have you neglected a friendship that brings you joy? Is there something you have wanted to learn but never made time for? Perhaps your health needs attention, your priorities have changed, or you are beginning to question whether the way you have been living still reflects the woman you are becoming.

This is where letting go connects with purpose.

Purpose does not always arrive as a grand new direction. Sometimes it begins with recognising that your time, energy and attention are limited, and you need to decide to use them more deliberately.

You may begin by making one decision that reflects your values rather than your disappointment. You might establish a boundary, have a conversation you have been avoiding, return to an interest that once brought you pleasure or make space for people with whom you feel comfortable being yourself.

The past does not need to disappear for you to create something meaningful in the present. And perhaps this is one of the more useful ways to understand forgiveness and gratitude together. Forgiveness, when it becomes possible and appropriate, may help change your relationship with what happened. Gratitude can remind you of what remains valuable, while a clearer understanding of yourself helps you decide what deserves your attention next.

The intention is not to become someone who is never disappointed or hurt. It is to become someone who can respond to those experiences without losing sight of her own health, values and direction.

Sometimes It Helps to Talk Things Through

Writing privately can be a meaningful place to begin, although sometimes our thoughts become so familiar that we move through the same questions without reaching a clearer understanding.

You may know that a relationship or experience is affecting you, yet struggle to recognise how it connects with other parts of your life. If your sleep has changed, your energy is lower, your confidence has been affected, or you are finding it difficult to decide what comes next, it may all be connected.

This is one reason I value working with women one-on-one.

In my private sessions, we create space to explore what is happening without expecting you to arrive with a perfectly formed explanation. Together, we can consider the connections between your emotional wellbeing, mindset, health, relationships and daily life, and identify what may need your attention.

The intention is not to tell you whether you should forgive someone, end a relationship or make a particular decision. It is to help you understand your circumstances more clearly, recognise your priorities and consider practical steps that reflect your own values.

If you have a particular concern you'd like to talk through, my Single Private Session offers a focused, confidential conversation and a considered place to begin.

Creating Peace Without Forgetting the Past

I think one of the more difficult things to accept about life is that we can love people who disappoint us, appreciate experiences that also caused pain and carry affection for relationships we would not choose to return to.

We are complex, and our feelings do not always fit into the simple categories we would prefer.

There will be people you never fully understand, conversations that never take place and experiences you would have chosen differently if you had known then what you know now. You may occasionally remember them with sadness, even after years of living a full and meaningful life.

That does not mean you have failed to let go.

Perhaps letting go is not measured by how little you remember or how warmly you can think about someone who hurt you. Instead, what if it shows up as the freedom to remember without feeling compelled to revisit every detail, and the ability to make decisions about your future without continually asking the past for permission.

I have found that gratitude helps me return to this perspective. It reminds me that I can acknowledge what was difficult without overlooking what is good, and appreciate what I have learned without needing to be grateful for the circumstances that taught me.

Some days, that means sending love towards someone who was once important in my life. Other days, it means recognising that I am still disappointed and allowing myself to feel that without judgement. Sometimes, it means sending a little love to myself.

As you consider the people and experiences you may still be carrying, I invite you to begin with one question: What am I feeling that I have not yet allowed myself to acknowledge?

You may discover that beneath the resentment is sadness, beneath the disappointment is a need you have overlooked, or beneath the wish for an apology is a longing to feel understood.

Whatever you find, allow yourself to approach it with curiosity rather than criticism. You do not need to decide today whether you have forgiven someone, or whether you will ever feel differently about what happened. You can begin by understanding yourself more honestly, recognising what remains valuable in your life and choosing where you would like to direct your attention now.

There is a particular freedom in holding love and disappointment together without letting either make your decisions for you.

And perhaps that is the gentle art of letting go with love.

With care,
Ocea

Let's create a life you love.

If you'd like to dig a little deeper

These are some of the papers and readings that informed my thinking for this article.

Fox, G. R., Kaplan, J., Damasio, H., & Damasio, A. (2015). Neural correlates of gratitude. Frontiers in Psychology. Read the paper → 

Kini, P., Wong, J., McInnis, S., Gabana, N., & Brown, J. W. (2016). The effects of gratitude expression on neural activity. NeuroImage. Read the paper → 

Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science. Read the paper → 

Wade, N. G., Hoyt, W. T., Kidwell, J. E., & Worthington, E. L. (2014). Efficacy of psychotherapeutic interventions to promote forgiveness: a meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. Read the paper → 

Zaccaro, A., Piarulli, A., Laurino, M., Garbella, E., Menicucci, D., Neri, B., & Gemignani, A. (2018). How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Read the paper →