u/Specific_Cause_2345

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I've been struggling with something in the concept of “letting go” that I don't see discussed clearly enough.

A lot of teachers seem to use these two ideas almost interchangeably:

letting go = let it be

But are they really the same thing?

Suppose someone has been experiencing intense despair for months or years. You tell them:

> “Don't resist it. Let it be. Allow the despair to be exactly as it is.”

Okay — but what exactly is supposed to happen then?

If I continue lying there feeling despair, and I simply allow the despair to remain, then I am still experiencing the same despair tomorrow, next week and potentially next year.

So what distinguishes letting go from simply allowing a chronic emotional state to continue?

This is especially confusing for me because I don't experience emotions in the way they are often described.

For example, when someone says:

> “If you feel sadness, allow yourself to feel sad.”

For me, “feeling sad” has historically meant becoming a sad person — making a sad facial expression, adopting a suffering posture, curling up, behaving like someone who is devastated, etc.

So if I “allow myself to be sad”, I can simply reproduce the entire state of being a devastated person.

But I don't think that's necessarily what Hawkins means when he talks about feeling and letting go.

Hawkins specifically says:

> “You don't have to label something as fear in order to be aware of the energy of the feeling and let it go.”

That seems very different from:

> “Feel the emotion and continue being that emotion.”

Maybe the important distinction is between allowing an experience to be present and identifying with / maintaining the experience.

Perhaps letting go means:

I don't resist the sensation.

I don't try to get rid of it.

I don't analyse it.

I don't have to name it.

I don't have to act it out.

I don't have to deliberately make myself feel worse.

And I don't have to make the experience disappear either.

I simply remain with whatever is actually present in the body.

But then there is still something I don't understand:

What exactly makes that “letting go” rather than simply “letting it be”?

If the sensation remains unchanged for hours, days or years, am I letting go — or am I simply allowing the same emotional pattern to continue?

And if I try to make the sensation disappear, that obviously becomes resistance.

So where exactly is the distinction?

I'm not asking whether emotions should be suppressed. I'm asking about the mechanism of letting go itself.

Because saying “just allow it” doesn't seem to answer the question for someone whose emotional state is already chronic.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the terminology completely, but I would genuinely like to hear how people who practice Hawkins' method understand this distinction.

Is “letting go” actually the same thing as “letting it be”, or is there an additional process involved that the phrase “let it be” fails to describe?

I’ve been trying to make sense of the Letting Go technique (based on David Hawkins' work), but I’ve hit a massive logical contradiction that I hope someone can clear up.

Here is where the logic completely breaks down for me:

The instruction: The core of the method is to become aware of the feeling, allow it to be there, and not try to change it or resist it.

The trap set by teachers: Whenever it doesn't work, teachers or advanced practitioners will tell you: "It's because you want it to go away. You are expecting relief, which means you are attached to a result and resisting the feeling."

The paradox: But let's look at this honestly. If I actually didn't care whether the feeling went away or stayed—if I was completely fine with it hanging around forever—I wouldn't need a technique in the first place. I wouldn't need to "allow it to be" or "become aware of it" with the purpose of processing it. I would just live my life normally.

The only reason anyone initiates a release technique is because a feeling hurts, is uncomfortable, and they want it to stop.

So here is my core question: Why are we told to bring awareness to a feeling and "let it go," while at the same time being told we are not allowed to want it to leave?

If wanting relief is classified as "resistance," and wanting the feeling to pass invalidates the process, then the technique requires you to pretend you don't want the exact thing that motivated you to use the technique in the first place.

How can a method demand a state of complete indifference to your own suffering, while simultaneously requiring you to actively sit down and "do" a technique to clear it? Isn't that a complete catch-22? Can someone explain how this makes logical sense?