4 min read
Iconic psychologist Carl Jung said something that flipped my idea of healing from pain. If healing is not getting over something, what did Jung mean? He thought we don’t solve the past or erase pain.
We simply release them.h
We let go of the things we’re holding onto — resentments, fears, guilt, and old stories that no longer serve us.
“We don’t really heal anything; we simply let it go,” he said.
It sounds simple.
But Jung’s wisdom is life-changing.
Most people hold on to the past because, in a complicated way, they feel it’s part of them. They’ve built identities around experiences that took a part of them away. They hold onto things, feelings, or memories that hurt and keep replaying them over and over again.
It’s like being stuck in a loop.
“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar. ” — Thich Nhat Hanh
The bad news is that when I hold onto hurt, I keep myself stuck. Jung’s perspective is that letting go is an act of self-compassion. It’s giving myself permission to move forward without dragging the weight of old wounds.
When I let go, I’m releasing pain’s control on my present.
I’m no longer letting it define my every step. The past is there, but it no longer has to control my reality in the present. That’s where healing happens — not by fixing the past, but by releasing it.
It’s like carrying a heavy backpack you don’t need. It’s harder to move forward when it keeps weighing you down. But when you let it go, you’re free to move, breathe, and live.
The more I hold onto old pain, the more it distorts my present.
What if you stopped replaying the negative memories and focused on the positive ones? But when I let go, I open up space for real peace, joy, or even a sense of lightness. I don’t have to make sense of every single piece of my past. I just need to accept it and let it be.
Healing is accepting what happened, processing it, and then letting it go.
That’s the real magic of freedom.