Sometimes letting go doesn’t mean forgiving, forgetting, or pretending that what happened didn’t matter.
“How do I let go of the hurt?”
It’s such a difficult question.
And if I’m honest, I don’t know that I’ve always known how to do it either. I’ve carried hurt from things that have happened to me for long periods of time. Some hurts stay with us because they haven’t been acknowledged, repaired or resolved. Others remain because the person who hurt us is still part of our lives.
We often talk about “letting go” as though it is something we should simply be able to decide to do. As though we can put the hurt down, forgive the person and move forward.
But it isn’t always that simple.
Is forgiveness always the answer?
For some people, forgiveness is an important part of healing. Religious and cultural teachings can place a strong emphasis on forgiveness, and there can be something meaningful about choosing not to hold onto anger or resentment.
But I don’t think forgiveness should always be something we ask of ourselves.
Sometimes what we need isn’t forgiveness.
Sometimes we need an acknowledgement of what happened.
We need someone to say, “I understand that I hurt you. I’m sorry.”
Sometimes we need changed behaviour. We need the person to take responsibility and show us, through their actions, that things can be different.
And sometimes we don’t get those things.
That can make letting go feel almost impossible.
What happens when we can’t walk away?
Sometimes the obvious answer to hurt is distance.
We stop speaking to someone. We remove ourselves from the relationship. We decide that this person no longer gets access to us or to our life.
But what happens when that’s not possible?
Perhaps they are family. Perhaps you share children. Perhaps you work together. Perhaps there are circumstances that mean completely cutting someone out would have consequences for other people we care about.
Sometimes we have to continue having some level of contact with the person who hurt us, even when we haven’t received the apology, acknowledgement or change that we needed.
And that’s really difficult.
There can be a part of us that says:
“Why should they still get to be part of my life when they hurt me?”
I think that response makes sense.
Our hurt can become protective. It can create conditions around who gets access to us and what parts of our lives they are allowed into. Sometimes those boundaries are exactly what we need.
But there can also be situations where our boundaries have to be negotiated alongside the needs of other people.
And that can leave us asking:
If I can’t remove the person, how do I live with the hurt?
Hurt is a form of pain
Perhaps it helps to think about emotional hurt in the same way that we think about physical pain.
When we’re physically hurt, we usually don’t tell ourselves to simply “let it go.”
We look at what caused the pain.
We try to treat the cause.
We might take medication to manage the symptoms. We rest. We protect the injured part of our body. We find strategies that help us cope while we heal.
Emotional pain can be similar.
Sometimes we can address the cause. We can have a conversation. We can ask for an apology. We can set a boundary. We can leave a relationship.
But sometimes the source of the pain continues to be present.
In those situations, perhaps the question isn’t:
“How do I make myself stop feeling hurt?”
Perhaps it is:
“How can I protect myself and care for myself while this hurt is still here?”
Creating boundaries around the hurt
Boundaries can be one way of doing this.
That might mean limiting how often you see someone.
It might mean deciding what parts of your life you share with them.
It might mean not discussing certain topics.
It might mean changing the role that person has in your life, even if you can’t remove them from it completely.
Boundaries don’t necessarily have to be about punishing someone or making them understand what they’ve done.
Sometimes boundaries are simply about recognising:
“This is what I need in order to feel safe and well.”
And sometimes, if it feels safe and appropriate, we might choose to have a conversation with the person who hurt us.
People don’t always realise the impact of their behaviour. That doesn’t excuse what happened, but being able to communicate our experience can sometimes create an opportunity for understanding or repair.
Of course, we can’t control how another person responds.
We can only control whether we choose to communicate and what we do afterwards.
Taking back the space, that hurt occupies
Something else I’ve been thinking about is how much space hurt can take up.
When someone hurts us, they can continue to occupy our thoughts long after the event itself has happened.
We might replay conversations.
We might imagine what we wish we’d said.
We might think about what they should have done differently.
We might wonder whether they understand what they’ve done.
We might become consumed by trying to make sense of their behaviour.
And sometimes, without realising it, the person who hurt us continues to take up a huge amount of emotional and mental space.
Perhaps part of letting go is not necessarily letting go of the hurt itself, but gradually allowing it to take up less space.
Not because it didn’t matter.
Not because what happened was okay.
But because we deserve to have a life that is bigger than what someone else did to us.
We can put some of our attention back towards the people we trust.
The relationships that feel safe.
The things that bring us joy.
The parts of ourselves that may have become lost while we were trying to make sense of what happened.
And we can ask:
What do they need?
But also:
What do I need?
Maybe letting go isn’t the right goal
I’m not sure I believe that we always have to “let go” of hurt.
Some things hurt because they mattered.
Some things leave a mark.
Some experiences change how we see ourselves, other people or the world.
And sometimes trying desperately to get rid of those feelings can become another way of putting pressure on ourselves.
Maybe instead of asking ourselves to let go, we can ask:
What would it look like to carry this differently?
Maybe healing means that the hurt is still there, but it doesn’t control every decision we make.
Maybe it means we can remember what happened without constantly reliving it.
Maybe it means creating boundaries that protect us.
Maybe it means accepting that we may never receive the apology we deserved.
Maybe it means grieving the relationship we wished we had.
Maybe it means choosing where we put our attention.
And maybe, over time, the hurt becomes one part of our story rather than the thing that takes over the whole story.
Making ourselves a priority
Sitting with hurt that hasn’t been resolved is hard.
There isn’t always a neat ending.
There isn’t always an apology.
There isn’t always accountability.
And there isn’t always an opportunity to walk away.
So perhaps letting go doesn’t have to mean forgetting, forgiving or pretending that it no longer hurts.
Perhaps it can mean becoming more mindful of the impact the hurt is having on our lives.
How much space is it taking?
What is it taking away from us?
What do we need to feel safer?
Where can we put our energy instead?
We may not be able to change what happened.
We may not be able to change the person who hurt us.
We may not even be able to remove them from our lives.
But we can begin to consider how much access the hurt itself has to our present.
Because making ourselves a priority doesn’t mean that what happened didn’t matter.
It means that what happened to us doesn’t get to take everything from us.
And perhaps, sometimes, that is what letting go can look like.