The Art of Letting Go

A Grumpy Warrior Journey to Inner Peace

I am a warrior.
Not cinematic, not a heroine — the grumpy one, who mutters at her own thoughts, sighs at the sky for no reason, and lies awake at night listening to fears that whisper "what if… "

The one who carries worries like stones in her pockets.
The one who gets disappointed too easily, excited too quickly, hopeful in ways that sometimes hurt more than they help.
And that is exactly why I’m writing this blog.
Because I want to become Mrs Ataraxia* — the calm, steady version of myself who doesn’t tremble at every shadow of the future. The one who knows how to let go. The one who doesn’t cling to fears, worries, disappointments, nonsense excitements, or false hopes.

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Ataraxia is a Greek word meaning a calm mind untouched by fear or disturbance. Not numbness. Not indifference. Just a steady inner peace — the kind that stays even when life doesn’t.

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To become her, I need to master the art of letting go — I write, I remember, I shift my mind.

Letting go of the fears that haunted me during sleepless nights. Letting go of the worries about what would happen if… Letting go of the disappointments that shaped my posture. Letting go of the false hopes that made me chase things not meant for me. Letting go of the emotional noise that kept me from hearing my own truth.

Do you need it too? If you do — it’s comforting to know I’m not alone.

Somewhere in the past, the Stoics learned to do this with clarity and courage. They didn’t run from life. They didn’t cling to it either. They walked through it with open hands, knowing that peace comes not from holding tightly, but from releasing wisely.

And now, here I am — a grumpy warrior learning to let go, one small truth at a time.

A Stoic Guide to Letting Go

The Stoics believed that letting go is not weakness — it is wisdom. Their guidance is simple, human, and quietly powerful:

Accept what is outside your control. Most of what haunts us — fears, imagined futures, other people’s choices — lives outside our sphere of influence. Letting go begins with recognising this boundary.

Hold lightly what is temporary. Everything changes. Everything passes. Clinging only creates suffering.

Return to yourself. Letting go is not losing. It is returning — to your breath, your values, your inner steadiness.

These principles are not dramatic. They are quiet. They are the foundation beneath every step toward becoming Mrs Ataraxia.

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Morning in the Kitchen

Letting go rarely begins in grand places. It comes in the quiet, almost unnoticed. It begins in ordinary rooms — kitchens, hallways, shadowed corners where your thoughts gather before you do.

Yesterday morning, I walked into my kitchen — hair messy, mood questionable, kettle half‑awake — and felt it immediately: that familiar heaviness behind the ribs, the one that sits like a guest who overstayed their welcome.

My husband — Mr Japanese Inner Peace — was already there.

“You look tired,” he said.

“I am,” I admitted. “But I don’t know how to put anything down.”

He nodded. No wonder — he has heard this confession a thousand times.

“Letting go,” he said, “is not a single act. It is a slow untying. A loosening. A conversation with the part of you that still believes holding on is noble.”

I sat across from him. The chair felt harder than usual. Or maybe I was just noticing things again.

The Bowl

He slid a small ceramic bowl toward me — simple, slightly chipped at the rim.

The one his mum gave us just after we married, thirty years ago. Dark blue, with tiny Sakura blossoms painted around the edge. I love it.

“Place your weight here.”

I stared at it. “What weight? I’m not holding anything.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Your hands are clenched.”

I looked down. He knows me well. He was right. My hands were tight fists, gripping invisible ropes.

So I did the strange thing he asked. I imagined the story I had been carrying — the one that had ended long ago but still lived in my muscles — and I placed it in the bowl.

Nothing happened. No light. No revelation. Just a quiet shift inside my chest, like a door opening a few millimetres.

Mr Japanese Inner Peace smiled.

“I know,” he said. “I did the same many times.” Then he added, “Letting go is not losing. It is returning.”

The Corridor of Memory

Later that day, I walked down the hallway of my home — a narrow corridor lined with photographs, books, small objects that once meant something. And I realised how often I walked this corridor in my mind, touching the walls of old memories, listening for footsteps that would never return.

Letting go is not forgetting. It is recognising that some rooms in your life are no longer meant to be lived in.

I paused by the window. The light was changing. The day was moving forward even if I wasn’t.

And I understood: Life does not wait for our grief to finish its sentences.

What the River told me

That fear dissolves when faced with clarity.

That the current teaches acceptance —

not resignation, but the courage to flow forward without clinging to the past.

The River

In the afternoon, I walked to the river — the slow, thoughtful Thames that gathers villages and towns in its arms. The water moved with the patience of someone who has seen centuries of human clinging and releasing.

I watched a leaf fall into the current. It didn’t fight. It didn’t cling to the branch. It simply surrendered to the direction it was already meant to go.

Letting go is necessary because the soul, like a river, cannot carry every fallen branch without losing its own direction.

I stood there for a long time, letting the river teach me what my mind resisted:

Letting go is not a single gesture, but a long conversation with the self — a negotiation between what was and what must now be allowed to walk its own path.

It begins quietly. Not with courage, but with exhaustion. A moment when the hands finally admit they cannot hold the past without breaking.

Letting go is not easy. It is the slow untying of invisible knots. It is the recognition that even love, when carried too long, can become a stone that drags the heart toward the riverbed.

And yet — it is necessary.

For life does not pause to wait for our grief to finish its sentences.

And when the hands open and the weight falls like a leaf returning to the earth — there is no triumph. Only a small, honest peace that says: You have carried enough. Now walk.

Evening at the Table

That evening, I sat at my kitchen table again. The bowl was still there. Empty, but not meaningless.

Mr Japanese Inner Peace snored softly in our bedroom.

I placed my hands on the table. Open. Unclenched.

And for the first time in months, I felt a small, honest peace enter my chest like a shy guest.

A peace that said: You have carried enough. Now walk.

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Recommended Reading

If this post spoke to you, you may find these reflections meaningful too:

• Stoicism for Beginners An introduction to ancient Stoic wisdom and how it can steady your modern life.

• The Divine in the Ordinary A reminder that meaning often hides in small, everyday moments.

• The Stoic Courage A deeper look at courage as the Stoics understood it — not loud, not dramatic, but mature and quietly powerful.