The Art of Letting Go: Weaving Wisdom from the Toltecs, Buddhism, Sufism, and the Náhuatl Tradition
We are swimming in an ocean of modern manifestation culture. From self-help books to social media feeds, we are constantly fed a specific blueprint: if we visualise during meditation hard enough, make a vision board, work hard enough, maintain a high-frequency vibration, and protect our positive mindset, life will bow to our design. We can heal from all diseases, we can manifest a million pounds, we will meet and marry the love of our lives. We are taught that reality is a blank canvas and we are the sole artists – and implicitly, that if our dreams do not become a reality, we must have done something wrong.
Many of us know this feeling of disappointment. I remember imagining a very specific path for my life – after a wonderful career, when I got pregnant in my late 30s, I dreamed of becoming a stay-at-home mum, tending to home and my kids. I could picture the perfect life with ease. But life had entirely different plans. In my children’s early years, my husband’s businesses collapsed, and the ground beneath us shifted almost overnight. Necessity took the steering wheel, and I had a choice, lose my home and live in poverty or step into full-time working motherhood much earlier and more abruptly than I ever envisioned or intended.
There is a profound, beautiful gift in the work I do, helping others to heal and teaching the arts of herbalism and shamanism. I find deep satisfaction in it, and I truly love my path, and now I can’t imagine it being any other way. If my husband’s businesses had not failed at that exact moment, I would not have made the tough decision to do my best to make my wellbeing business succeed. We have in many ways swapped roles, and we have experienced the perspectives of traditional husband/wife roles in reverse. This shift in roles has been a major teacher for both of us, and we are much kinder, happier and healthier people for it. So in truth, it was a blessing, as much as it has been a burden. But alongside that love lives a quiet, lingering grief for the hours I missed playing with my little ones, the milestones caught in fleeting glances, the sheer exhaustion of trying to balance and be it all.
When life forces a pivot we didn't ask for, if we have been following the manifestation gurus, we can easily fall into the trap of thinking we did something wrong. We blame ourselves for failing to manifest our dreams. But true peace doesn’t come from trying to force reality to match an imaginary vision, it comes from learning the art of letting go.
Watch me share how life taught me the art of letting go.
Buddhist Roots: The Trap of Attachment and the Two Arrows of Suffering
In Buddhist philosophy, suffering arises not from life’s changes, but from our attachment to how we think things should have been. Suffering is our white-knuckled grip on an idealised past or a rigid expectation of the future.
The Buddha famously described suffering through the parable of the two arrows. When an unexpected life event hits us – such as a business collapsing or a path unravelling – that is the first arrow. It hurts, it’s real, and it brings genuine grief. But the second arrow is the story we tell ourselves about the event: the self-blame, the shame for not manifesting correctly, and the endless rumination of “I should have seen this coming” or “I failed.” That second arrow is self-inflicted, and it is far more painful than the first.
When our dreams dissolve, our first instinct is often to pick up that second arrow and put on a brave face. We lean into a toxic, false positivity – that exhausting, stoic pretence that “everything is fine” and everything happens for a reason. But false positivity is heavy armour. It isn't real, and eventually, we exhaust ourselves trying to maintain the illusion that we are unbothered.
Beneath that forced smile often lives resentment. Resentment is like a tiny, subterranean worm; it eats us up from the inside out, growing stronger the more negative, repetitive thoughts we feed it in secret. True letting go requires us to drop the armour of false positivity, look the grief in the eye, and acknowledge what was lost without shaming ourselves for feeling the sting.
Sufi Wisdom: The Grounding Truth of “This Too Shall Pass”
To loosen our grip on control, it helps to remember the impermanence of all things – our struggles, our triumphs, our plans, and our pains.
There is a traditional Sufi wisdom story of an ancient king who commanded his wise men to create a ring that carried a message capable of making him happy when he was sad, and sad when he was happy. After much contemplation, the wise men gave him a simple ring with an inscription: “This too shall pass.”
When we are in the depths of financial stress, unexpected career shifts, or the grief of unmet expectations, those words anchor us. But they are equally vital when things are good. They remind us to hold our expectations, our timelines, and our rigid life designs lightly. Nothing stays fixed in stone – and in that impermanence lies our ultimate freedom.
Toltec Wisdom & The Warrior Heart Practice
The Toltec tradition teaches us that much of our suffering stems from the “domestic agreements” and stories we inherit about how life ought to look. Don Miguel Ruiz reminds us of the power of forgiveness – not as a gift to someone else, but as the ultimate act of reclaiming our own energy from the past.
To navigate these inner shifts practically, Don Miguel Ruiz’s lineage and teachers like HeatherAsh Amara offer The Warrior Heart Practice. This dynamic, compassionate tool provides a clear framework when we feel trapped by our stories:
Notice (The Fire): Acknowledge what you are feeling without judgement – name the grief, the frustration, or the longing.
Clarify (The Air): Separate the objective facts of what happened from the emotional fiction and self-blame you've piled on top of it.
Open (The Water): Feel the vulnerability beneath the anger or disappointment. Soften the heart rather than hardening into defence.
Action (The Earth): Choose a grounded, conscious response moving forward, rather than reacting from old wounds.
The Warrior Heart Practice cuts through our inner illusions, helping us stop fighting reality and start walking with clarity.
The Náhuatl Prayer: A Sacred Unburdening
To bring all of these threads together, there is perhaps no greater anchor than this traditional Náhuatl prayer. It is a masterclass in releasing expectations, forgiving our ancestors, our families, and ourselves, and returning to the sovereign wisdom of our own hearts:
I release my parents from the feeling that they have failed me.
I release my children from the need to make me proud, so that they can write their own ways, according to their hearts.
I release my partner from the obligation to make me feel complete.
I lack nothing in myself. I learn with all the beings that surround me through all time. I thank my grandparents and ancestors who met so that today I breathe life.
And I release them from the faults of the past and from the wishes they did not fulfil, aware that they did the best they could to resolve their situations, within the consciousness they had at that moment.
I honour them, I love them, and I recognise their innocence.
I bare my soul before their eyes and that is why they know that I do not hide or owe anything, more than being faithful to myself and my own existence walking with the wisdom of the heart.
I am aware that I am fulfilling my life project, free of visible and invisible family loyalties that may disturb my peace and my happiness, which are my greatest responsibilities.
I renounce the role of saviour, of being the one who unites or who fulfils the expectations of others.
And learning through LOVE, I bless my essence and my way of expressing myself, although there may be someone who cannot understand me.
I understand myself because only I lived and experienced my story; because I know myself, I know who I am, what I feel, what I do and why I do it. I respect and approve.
I honour the Divinity in me and in you.
We are free.
A Traditional Náhuatl Prayer
The Science of Letting Go: Why Forgiveness Heals the Body
It is easy to think of forgiveness and letting go as purely spiritual or emotional luxuries – nice ideas on paper, but separate from our physical reality. Yet modern scientific research reveals quite the opposite: holding onto resentment, unexpressed grief, and rigid expectations is an active physical stressor.
When we hold a grudge or ruminate over a blueprint that fell apart, our brain’s threat-detection centre (the amygdala) stays switched on. It treats unresolved resentment like an ongoing physical threat, keeping our nervous system locked in a chronic state of fight-or-flight. Over time, this takes a severe toll:
Lowered Stress and Cortisol: Studies show that practising emotional forgiveness and nonattachment significantly reduces the production of cortisol (the primary stress hormone) and lowers resting heart rates.
Cardiovascular Protection: Research highlighted by organisations like the Mayo Clinic and various psychological studies link forgiveness to lower blood pressure, improved cholesterol levels, and a reduced risk of heart-related issues.
Immune and Nervous System Support: Letting go of chronic anger and self-blame decreases systemic inflammation and exhaustion, helping our bodies recover more efficiently from chronic pain and fatigue.
Mental Liberation: Psychologically, moving away from false positivity and toward true acceptance correlates with drastically lower rates of depression, anxiety, and emotional rumination, making space for genuine life satisfaction.
Ultimately, letting go isn't about doing something nice for someone else, nor is it about pretending a painful pivot didn't hurt. As the science demonstrates, forgiveness and release are profound acts of biological and emotional self-preservation. By putting down the heavy armour of control, we stop punishing ourselves – and finally allow our bodies, minds, and hearts to rest.
A Closing Meditation Practice for Letting Go
True letting go takes conscious, repeated effort; it does not happen all at once. If you are carrying the grief of a life path that shifted away from your dreams, or feeling the subtle weight of resentment, try this short meditation practice:
Find Your Anchor: Sit comfortably with your spine tall. Take three deep, slow breaths into your belly, allowing your shoulders to drop away from your ears.
Name the Ghost: Bring to mind a specific expectation, timeline, or dream you are still mourning – a version of your life that didn’t happen. Acknowledge it honestly. No false positivity here; let yourself feel the sadness or frustration without judgement.
Locate the Grip: Notice where you are holding that expectation in your body – is it a tightness in your chest, a knot in your stomach, or tension in your jaw?
The Breath of Release: As you inhale, imagine drawing breath into that tight space. As you exhale slowly through your mouth, consciously whisper internally: “This too passes. I release the need for it to have been any other way.”
Honour Your Actual Path: Place both hands gently over your heart. Feel the beating pulse of the life you did live, the resilience you developed, and the unexpected gifts you carved out of the unexpected turns. Whisper to yourself: “I did my best with the consciousness I had. I am enough, I love and accept myself exactly as I am.”
Prefer to be guided? Join me for the full meditation.
Returning to the Wisdom of the Heart
As you navigate the winding, unexpected paths of your own life, remember that you don't need to have it all figured out, and you certainly don't need to punish yourself for the dreams that took a different shape.
Give yourself the permission and the time to truly process your feelings, rather than covering them up with a brave face or distracting yourself into exhaustion. True healing requires conscious intention. Whether you choose to work through the fire, air, water, and earth of HeatherAsh Amara’s Warrior Heart Practice, sit in gentle awareness with a Buddhist meditation, or read through the Náhuatl Prayer daily until you feel the physical and emotional release settle deep into your bones, let it be real.
May you find quiet strength in the release, freedom in the unknown, and a deep, abiding grace for the beautiful, messy story you are actually living.
Wishing you peace.
PS - In over 30 years as a medical herbalist and shamanic healer, I have sat with so many people carrying a dream that took a different shape. If you would like support to grieve it and let it go, you can explore my 1-to-1 therapies here in Margate.
