The Art of Letting Go

When I entered my office in 2019, I was actually appalled.

We were the regie team of an orchestra, and yet the room looked like a very boring office. There were old black filing cabinets from the previous building, a fridge and a sofa that somehow made the whole place look more like a student common room than a professional workplace.

So when I got permission to redecorate, I happily spent part of my Christmas vacation moving furniture around. I put the fridge and sofa into a little nook around the corner, which actually worked much better. On long days, the sofa became a very practical place for a quick nap.

And then there was the piano.

I had the idea of turning a piano into a piece of art and spent time making it something that felt right for the room. It became the feature of the office, which was also visited by conductors, musicians and soloists. I loved it. It had become part of the atmosphere of the place and, perhaps more importantly, it had emotional value to me.

Not everyone felt the same way. One of the other directors thought it was kitsch.

Well, art is like that.

When I left the organisation six years later, I didn't take the piano with me. It belonged to the organisation, after all. A few weeks later, I found out that my former team had taken it to the dump.

And that upset me. More than I expected, actually.

Why was I still upset?

For months, I didn't really know what to do with the feeling. There was anger, disappointment and frustration. By then, I had been the team leader, and over the years the piano had been joined by several other upcycled instruments and pieces of my artwork. They all took up space in the office.

Of course, after I left, the team had every right to decide how they wanted to use and decorate their room. I could understand wanting to make the space their own. But there was something painful about seeing the room cleared of everything that had been mine, as if there should be no trace of me left.

At the same time, what right did I have to object? I had left. The room was no longer mine.

That was the difficult part: holding both things at once. I could feel hurt by what had happened and still recognise that they had every right to make their own choices. I didn't have to like their decision, but perhaps I could learn to let it be.

This is where mindfulness has helped me. I've learned to notice what is happening in me: thoughts, emotions and physical sensations. Not necessarily to do something about them, and not immediately to find out why I feel this way. Just to notice and accept what is there as it is.

Eventually, this can make it possible to let go.

And that last part is difficult.

We talk about letting go as if it were simple: let it go, move on, don't hold on to anger, don't dwell on the past. But how?

I didn't know how to let go

I even tried reading a book called Letting Go. It didn't really help. Not because the book was necessarily bad, but because I realised that knowing I should let go isn't the same as knowing how to let go.

It reminded me of something I learned from Marie Kondo.

I had read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Spark Joy, and when I first applied the KonMari Method, I found it almost mind-blowing. Suddenly, I understood how to let go of physical things. Instead of simply deciding what to throw away, you start by deciding what you want to keep, paying attention to what brings you joy and letting go of what no longer does.

That gave me a process. I used it when I moved house, too, because if you don't organise before you move, you will probably never organise after you move. There is something very satisfying about physically letting go of things.

But what about the things we cannot put in a cardboard box?

Letting go of more than things

Anger, frustration, guilt, disappointment, expectations, responsibilities and goals can all be difficult to release. So can things we genuinely care about.

Many of us work hard because we care. We are passionate about what we do, feel responsible and want to do things properly. Sometimes we were simply brought up to work hard, not be lazy, keep ourselves busy and get on with things.

And maybe it works. We build a career, achieve things we are proud of, and somehow combine work, family, friends, hobbies and everything else that life asks of us.

Until, at some point, we can't.

For me, part of learning to prevent that from happening again has been learning to let go: some responsibilities, some goals, some expectations, some things I think I should do, and even some things I want to do. Sometimes it means letting go of the need to fix something immediately.

Notice. Accept. Let be. Let go.

Mindfulness taught me this not through theory, but through experience.

During my MBSR training, I started with something very small: noticing thoughts, emotions and sensations in my body without trying to change or judge them. Then came acceptance. Not necessarily liking something or agreeing with it, but allowing it to be there without immediately fighting it.

Gradually, I began to understand that letting go isn't always about getting rid of something. Sometimes, we don't need to take any action at all. We can simply let things be.

Anger? Let it be. Frustration? Let it be. Disappointment? Let it be.

Not in an I give up kind of way, or an I don't care kind of way. It's not about surrendering or becoming indifferent. It's about accepting what is there, without judging it or feeling that it has to be different. It's okay for it to be there, even if it's uncomfortable.

And perhaps, when we stop struggling with what we feel, we sometimes find that we no longer need to hold on to it so tightly. We can let it be, and in time, let it go.

It was baby steps for me. And because I was already in burnout at the time, I had something I probably wouldn't normally have had: time. I could devote almost all of my time to the training and practising between sessions.

So I practised. And somewhere along the way, something else followed: trust.

Notice. Accept. Let be. Let go. Trust.

I don't want to explain this as a formula, though. I don't think it works that way. Some things simply need to be practised, like music. You can't learn to play the cello by reading about playing the cello. At some point, you have to pick up the instrument.

And then there is art

Perhaps that is also why I keep thinking about the piano.

I created something that became meaningful to me, and then, years later, it was gone. The piano is gone, the room is gone, and the organisation has changed. But my experience of it is still mine.

Art is often 儚い (hakanai) — fleeting, transient, impermanent. Music is perhaps the clearest example. A musician plays a note and, almost immediately, it disappears into the air. The performance exists in that moment and then it is gone. Even while it exists, every listener may experience it differently.

We cannot hold on to it. We can only experience it and allow it to be what it is.

Perhaps letting go isn't about losing something. And letting be isn't about pretending that everything is fine. It's about allowing things to be what they are, even when they are not what we hoped for, and recognising that they don't have to remain the same forever.

The piano taught me that too, eventually.