Let Go by Letting In
You cannot release what you never fully allowed yourself to feel.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 78%
Emotionally charged memories keep resurfacing, especially when we are tired or vulnerable, because some non-experienced experience is trapped in the neural nets of memory and still needs to be released. We often revisit the material on a doomed quest, hoping this time to extract blood from the stone, redemption, or absolution. Hanson's counterintuitive move is that you cannot let go until you let in fully. To truly release, you open to the trapped experience and resource yourself enough to feel it most fully. When you do, it typically moves through you. The white-hot core of trauma is the exception: it may not vanish, but its surrounding context, meaning, and your own regulation can shift so it no longer hijacks you.
Origin
From Dr. Rick Hanson's contemplative practice and clinical work, including his own psychedelic integration experiences, shared with Chris Williamson on Modern Wisdom.
Core principles
- 01We keep returning to material because an unexperienced experience is trapped in memory.
- 02Full release requires opening to and feeling the trapped experience, not avoiding it.
- 03When fully felt, most experiences move through you rather than staying stuck.
- 04You must be resourced and supported enough to feel it without being flooded.
- 05The white-hot core of trauma may never fully release, but its context and your regulation can change.
How to run it
- 1
See the return for what it is
Notice that you keep going back to the same painful material and recognize it as a trapped, unfelt experience seeking release, not as useful analysis.
Pro tip Watch for the doomed-quest framing, hoping to finally get blood from the stone, which signals avoidance dressed as searching.
- 2
Resource yourself
Before opening the material, establish enough internal and external support, calm, and safety that you can feel it without being overwhelmed.
Pro tip Foreground the ongoing okayness and support already present in your body, relationships, and world.
Watch out Insufficient resourcing can flood you and re-sensitize rather than release.
- 3
Open and feel it fully
Turn toward the trapped experience and feel it as completely as you can, including the softer feelings underneath. This is the letting-in that makes letting go possible.
Pro tip Facing it directly, even bravely diving into the scary image, is often what unlocks the release.
- 4
Let it move, or turn the corner
Once fully felt, most experiences move through you and dissolve. For the white-hot core of trauma that will not release, deliberately help yourself turn a corner so you stop re-inhabiting it.
Pro tip Changing the context, meaning, and self-story around a trauma reduces how much it hijacks you even when the memory remains.
Watch out Do not force complete release from severe trauma; sometimes the work is learning to live with it well.
In the wild
For years Hanson had recurring visions of demonic, devouring faces, and as a fearful child he lay awake convinced of a monster under his bed. Rather than keep fleeing, he twice chose to enter the fear: as a boy he leaned over the bed daring the monster to eat his face and found only dust bunnies, and later in Joshua Tree he dove into the devouring faces. In that moment he got a release, recognizing them as disowned, wild parts of himself, and integrated them. He reports never having a nightmare since.
→ Turning toward and fully feeling the dreaded material produced integration and lasting release.
Common mistakes
Revisiting to avoid feeling
Endlessly rehashing the story is often a defense against the softer feelings underneath; without actually feeling them, the material never releases.
Forcing release from deep trauma
Treating the white-hot core of trauma like ordinary material and demanding it vanish can re-traumatize; sometimes the aim is regulation, not disappearance.
Is it for you?
Best for
People stuck revisiting old hurts, breakups, or regrets that never seem to resolve.
Not ideal for
Acute or severe trauma, which needs paced, regulated, and often professional support.
From the transcript
“we we can't let go until we let in fully”
“what typically happens when you feel it most fully is it moves through you”
“You have to be a little careful with the white hot core of trauma”
From the episode
The Psychology of Obsession, Rumination & Letting Go - Dr Rick Hanson - #968
Dr Rick Hanson