I Was Unsure On How To Let Go — And I Just Did It.
Personal reflections on letting go and detachment.
In 2022, I went on exchange with my university. I spent an entire year outside home — and it changed my life completely.
It became a sort of “need” for myself to leave home, where I live with my parents, to recharge and let the stress of work go. Don’t get me wrong: my family and I get along very well, but there is this need in me to get out and fly to the friends I’ve made along the way.
For three consecutive years now, I’ve spent the holidays away from home. It’s an odd feeling after having had the blessing of spending them with my family my whole life — but spending them with friends has a charm that I like a lot.
These trips typically consisted in me meeting many friends throughout the trip in their respective cities, and sometimes traveling around with some of them. Another reason why I’ve always looked after these trips was because my friends have always been very, very welcoming and they’ve made me feel very loved.
Their friendship is a blessing to me.
This year, the trip had a somewhat… different flavor. It was not better, it was not worse. There is just an element that I was not used to before — something I had not done.
I ended up planning to visit some cities alone.
How did this make me feel? A bit odd, to be honest. It is just recently that I’ve become comfortable being on my own skin, and taking this on definitely felt like a challenge.
I understand that some people out there might find this incredibly silly — but I trust there are others out there that understand what I am talking about.
I’ve always visited cities with my friends. I’ve always discovered new things with them, shared experiences, and made plans with them on my side.
I was not scared to do this alone now, but I felt incredibly awkward.
What do you mean I have to sit on my own and eat? Walk around alone? Be on the hostel alone?
After just over a day, what I found is that traveling alone is a great exercise for us who struggle with letting go and allowing things to just be.
The first city that I visited alone was Munich, with Prague being next by the time of writing.
I’ve prepared myself mentally to allow this trip to be as relaxing and un-stressing as possible. I wanted to let go of any expectations and pre-made assumptions of how I would like this trip to go (this requires a baseline understanding of what your boundaries are and what you enjoy and not enjoy doing.)
I found out that you really don’t have much of a choice other than being alright with doing whatever you want to do. That’s… pretty much it. I stayed at a hostel that does a lot of social activities, so I guess that if someone wants to travel alone to meet new people, one can do that easily.
The first night, I just walked around, ate something, and went to bed. No one was watching what I did, and nobody cared.
Next morning, I had made some plans on my mind of the things that I wanted to see, only to get out of the hostel to find out that 1- it was pouring and 2- it was Sunday (everything is closed in Germany on Sundays). Without letting it affect me, I just turned around and bought a breakfast from the Hostel and chatted with a friend over the phone.
All of the sudden, another guy and their brother sat next to me, and we hit it off. They said they were going to a car museum, and asked me whether I wanted to join them. Now, I’m not much of a car guy myself, but I honestly had no better plans.
I ended up having an amazing afternoon, and made some friends along the way.
This once again taught me the value of just letting go of all expectations and tensions. Naturally, one can decide not to involve themselves on plans they do not feel comfortable with. The idea is going with the flow and letting life unfold.
Of course, everything has its ups and downs and the flow is never consistent. I now however feel way more at ease with something that initially concerned me — out of lack of experience.
The takeaway is that there is no step by step guide on how to let go.
It is something that I’ve always been looking for — someone to tell me how to do it.
My uneducated guess is that you just have to release, allow things to happen knowing that everything will be alright and that you will be able to have the freedom of choosing what you want and not want to do.
