Some Things We Don’t Let Go: What Martial Arts Can Teach Us About Loss, Love, and Learning What to Carry

Recently, I experienced a significant and unexpected loss in my life.

I’m still very much in the middle of understanding what that means. I don’t have a profound conclusion to offer about grief, and I certainly don’t have a path for moving through it. If anything, the experience has left me with more questions than answers.

One of those questions has stayed with me because it challenges something I have spent much of my life studying and teaching: What does it really mean to let go?

Martial arts has taught me a great deal about perseverance. I’ve learned to push through discomfort, get back up after falling, walking again when told I may never do it again, practice when progress feels like it isn’t happening, and continue when something becomes difficult. I’ve taught those same lessons to students for years, and I still believe deeply in them.

But loss is different.

Sometimes life gives us something we cannot train our way through. There is no opponent to defeat, no technique to perfect, and no belt waiting at the end to tell us we’ve completed the lesson. We can’t simply work harder until the it disappears.

Sometimes there is simply something heavy that we didn’t choose to carry.

Our instinct may be to ask how we can put that weight down. We hear so much about healing through acceptance, releasing what we cannot control, and learning to let go. Those ideas contain a great deal of wisdom, particularly in many of the philosophical traditions that have influenced martial arts.

Yet I’ve found myself wondering whether letting go is always the goal.

Maybe some things aren’t meant to be released. Maybe some things are meant to change us. And perhaps part of becoming stronger is learning the difference between the things that prevent us from moving forward and the things we simply have to learn how to carry differently.

We Spend a Lot of Time Learning to Let Go

The idea of letting go appears frequently in martial arts philosophy and in the Eastern traditions that surround it.

We learn about non-attachment. We hear stories about impermanence. We are encouraged to release our attachment to outcomes and stop clinging to things outside our control.

There is tremendous wisdom in this.

Anyone who has trained in martial arts for a meaningful amount of time has probably experienced it firsthand. Make a mistake during poomsae and you have to let it go before the next movement. Lose a point while sparring and dwelling on it makes you more likely to lose another. Struggle during a belt assessment and frustration can quickly become a greater obstacle than the technique itself.

Sometimes our greatest obstacle isn’t what happened. It’s our refusal to release what happened.

I’ve written about this before in Trusting the Process When It Pushes Back. Growth doesn’t always follow the schedule we create for it, and eventually we have to learn that we cannot control every outcome. We can control our preparation, our effort, our response, and our willingness to continue. The rest sometimes has to be released.

But I’ve been thinking about that word lately: Release.

Because grief introduces a complicated question.

Release also happens to be the name of one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs, and the first song I ever heard them play live in concert at Soldier Field.

What if letting go isn’t always the same thing as healing?

What Does “Letting Go” Actually Mean?

“Letting go” is a phrase we hear often when people talk about difficult experiences.

Usually, it is well intentioned. Don’t remain trapped by what happened. Accept what you cannot change. Find a way to continue living.

There is wisdom there too.

But what exactly are we supposed to let go of?

The sadness? The memories? The relationship? The love? The part of ourselves that exists because another human being was once part of our lives?

Those are very different things.

Perhaps one of the problems is that we’ve allowed “letting go” to become a phrase for healing, as though getting better requires us to progressively loosen our connection to everything associated with what we’ve lost.

I think healing may be more complicated than that.

Maybe we don’t need to let go.

Maybe we need to learn what deserves to be released and what deserves to be carried.

That distinction feels increasingly important to me.

Carrying Is Not the Same as Clinging

Martial artists understand something about tension.

Ask a beginner to perform a technique with power and one of the first things they often do is tense every muscle they can. Their shoulders rise. Their fists tighten. Their breathing changes or they even hold their breath. They try to manufacture strength by holding everything more tightly.

Eventually, they discover something surprising: unnecessary tension can actually make them weaker.

Good technique requires knowing when to contract and when to relax. Power doesn’t come from remaining rigid through an entire movement. It comes from understanding when tension serves us and when it gets in the way.

I wonder if there is something in that lesson for grief.

Carrying and clinging aren’t the same thing.

Clinging can mean refusing to accept that something has changed. Carrying can mean accepting that something changed us.

That is an important difference.

To carry something doesn’t require us to remain frozen in the past. It doesn’t mean refusing to experience happiness again or believing that moving forward somehow replaces what came before. It can simply mean acknowledging that our experiences become part of us.

Perhaps healing doesn’t require becoming unaffected by loss.

Perhaps it means slowly learning how to move while carrying it.

Not Every Weight Needs to Become Lighter

We describe strength in terms of making something easier.

Lift a weight often enough and eventually that same weight feels lighter. Practice a kick long enough and the movement that once required complete concentration becomes natural. Repeat a poomsae enough times and eventually you stop desperately trying to remember what comes next. You begin to understand how the movements connect.

We like this version of growth because it gives us a clear direction. Hard becomes easier. Unfamiliar becomes familiar. Weak becomes strong.

It’s part of what makes training so rewarding.

But perhaps some experiences don’t follow that pattern.

Maybe some things remain heavy.

What changes is our ability to make room for their weight.

At first, grief can demand an enormous amount of our attention. Ordinary things may suddenly become difficult. Memories can arrive without warning. Something seemingly insignificant can bring the weight back when we thought, for a little while, that we had set it down.

Over time, perhaps we learn how to carry it alongside everything else.

We can laugh without believing laughter means we’ve forgotten. We can enjoy something without feeling guilty for enjoying it. We can make new memories without believing they replace the old ones.

The weight can remain meaningful without occupying every available space.

That isn’t forgetting.

It isn’t abandoning.

It may simply be another kind of growth.

Strength Does Not Always Mean Pushing Through

This may be one of the parts of grief that has challenged my understanding of martial arts the most.

We use a very particular language around strength.

“Keep going!” “Don’t quit!” “Get back up!” “One more rep!” “Keep pushing!”

Those commands are incredibly powerful. I’ve watched students discover abilities they didn’t know they possessed because someone encouraged them not to give up when something became difficult.

I’ve also written about Why the Right Thing Is Often the Harder Thing to Do, because there are times when discomfort isn’t telling us to stop. Sometimes doing what matters requires accepting that the path will be difficult.

I still believe that.

But even good lessons become incomplete when we apply them to every circumstance.

Sometimes strength is continuing, and sometimes strength is stopping long enough to recognize what we need. Sometimes strength is training harder, and sometimes it’s resting. Sometimes strength is being the person who encourages everyone around you, and sometimes it’s admitting that today you need someone else to encourage you.

There are experiences in life where “push through it” isn’t wisdom.

Grief is one of them.

Life continues, of course. There are responsibilities to meet, people who depend on us, and ordinary things that still need to be done. But continuing to live isn’t the same as pretending something doesn’t hurt.

Perhaps resilience isn’t always about bouncing back to exactly who we were before.

Sometimes the things we experience change us.

Maybe resilience is learning how to allow ourselves to be changed without allowing ourselves to be consumed.

That is a very different kind of strength.

Some Things Should Be Put Down

None of this means that the wisdom of letting go is wrong.

There are many things we carry that make our journey harder without making our lives richer.

Ego. Resentment. Anger that no longer serves a purpose. That we cannot show emotion. The belief that asking for help makes us weak. The expectation that life must unfold according to the plans we’ve made for it.

Martial arts has helped me put down many of those things, and I’m still working on others.

Loss can come with its own burdens too. There may be guilt or regret. There may be questions without satisfying answers. There may be anger about circumstances we cannot change or endless thoughts about what we wish had happened differently.

Perhaps part of healing is gradually learning which of those things we can set down.

But love is different.

Gratitude is different.

The lessons we learned from another person are different.

The ways someone changed who we are are different.

Those things don’t necessarily prevent us from moving forward. In some ways, they become part of what moves forward with us.

Wisdom isn’t simply learning how to let go.

It’s learning what to let go of.

Impermanence Doesn’t Make Something Less Valuable

Closely connected to the idea of non-attachment is another concept that appears throughout Eastern philosophy: impermanence.

Everything changes.

We understand this intellectually. Children grow up. Some students eventually leave the dojang. Relationships change. Careers change. Bodies age. Communities evolve. The person we were ten years ago isn’t exactly the person we are today.

Nothing stays precisely as it is.

That knowledge can sound depressing if we focus entirely on endings, but I think impermanence can teach us something much more beautiful.

Something doesn’t have to last forever to matter forever.

A moment can be temporary and still change a life.

A person can be part of our journey for a limited amount of time and influence who we become long after that chapter has ended.

A student might train with an instructor for only a few years and remember something that instructor said decades later. A brief act of kindness can alter someone’s day without the person who offered it ever knowing. A conversation can last only minutes and still remain with us for years. I have written about this in The Weight of Our Words.

The fact that something ends doesn’t erase the fact that it existed.

Perhaps understanding impermanence shouldn’t make us afraid of loving things because we might someday lose them.

Maybe it should make us more attentive to them while they’re here.

Be There While You’re There

We talk frequently in martial arts about being present.

During sparring, you cannot remain trapped in an exchange that happened thirty seconds ago. During poomsae, you can’t fully perform the movement you’re doing now if your mind is already three movements ahead.

You have to be where you are.

That’s relatively easy to understand on the training floor.

It is much harder to practice in everyday life.

We’re surrounded by distractions. We sit with people while looking at screens. We listen while preparing our response instead of actually hearing what someone is saying. We postpone phone calls and conversations because we assume there will always be another opportunity.

We treat ordinary moments as though they are unlimited.

They aren’t.

I don’t think the answer is to walk through life constantly wondering whether every interaction might be the last. That wouldn’t be presence. It would be anxiety.

The lesson I’m beginning to see is much simpler.

Be there while you’re there.

Listen when someone is speaking. Laugh when something is funny. Notice the people around you. Say the thing you’ve been meaning to say. Put the phone down occasionally. Stay for the conversation.

Let ordinary moments be enough.

Not because we’re afraid they’ll disappear, but because they’re happening now.

The Spaces Between the Moments

Recently, I wrote The Spaces Between the Belts about something I’ve observed throughout my years of teaching Taekwondo.

We celebrate milestones.

The first class. The first tournament. A belt promotion. Black belt.

Those moments matter, but they aren’t where most of our lives happen.

Our lives happen between them.

A student may remember the night they earned their black belt forever, but the person wearing that belt was shaped during hundreds of ordinary evenings when nothing particularly memorable seemed to happen.

Life seems to work the same way.

We remember graduations, weddings, birthdays, vacations, promotions, championships, and major accomplishments. Yet when something causes us to look backward, we often discover that the moments we treasure aren’t necessarily the ones we would have predicted.

A conversation. A joke. A car ride. A meal. A song. An ordinary afternoon.

No ceremony. No award. No realization that this particular moment would someday become important.

We were simply living.

Perhaps one of the things grief reveals, however painfully, is just how much life exists in those spaces between our milestones.

Those spaces aren’t empty.

They’re where our lives actually are.

We Were Never Meant to Carry Everything Alone

Martial arts places a tremendous amount of importance on individual responsibility, and I believe deeply in that lesson.

Your instructor cannot practice for you. Your parents cannot earn your belt for you. Your teammates cannot make your choices for you. Eventually, every student has to take ownership of their own journey.

But individual responsibility should never be confused with isolation.

Look around TVMA Academy and you’ll see people helping one another constantly.

A senior student helps a beginner understand something that once confused them. A teammate encourages someone who is exhausted. An instructor recognizes frustration and offers another perspective. Parents support other families. Students celebrate one another’s victories.

In What Taekwondo Teaches Beyond Kicks and Forms, I’ve written about how some of the most important lessons of martial arts have very little to do with physical technique. Community is one of them.

We train individually, but we don’t grow entirely alone.

And maybe the same is true of the difficult things we carry.

There are parts of our experiences that belong only to us. No one else can completely understand a relationship, a memory, a disappointment, or a loss exactly as we experienced it.

But that doesn’t mean we have to carry every part of it ourselves.

Sometimes someone else can hold one of the pieces for a while.

There is strength in that too. Every great athlete has someone in their corner.

Some Things We Don’t Let Go

I began writing this because I’m trying to understand something myself.

Not because I have the answer.

Maybe months or years from now, I’ll understand grief differently than I do today. I hope I continue learning. That’s one reason I don’t want to put a neat conclusion on something that doesn’t feel particularly neat.

What I do know is that loss has caused me to reconsider something I thought I understood.

For years, martial arts has taught me the value of letting go. Let go of ego. Let go of anger. Let go of the mistake. Let go of the outcome you cannot control. Let go of the version of yourself you’ve outgrown.

I still believe all of that.

But perhaps wisdom isn’t learning to let go of everything.

Perhaps it is becoming discerning enough to know the difference.

Some things should be released because carrying them prevents us from moving forward.

Other things become part of what we carry forward.

Love. Gratitude. Lessons. Stories. Laughter. The ways another human being changed us simply by sharing part of their life with ours.

Those things don’t necessarily prevent us from moving forward.

In some ways, they become part of who is moving forward.

Maybe non-attachment doesn’t ask us to stop caring deeply. Maybe it asks us to understand that loving something and possessing it forever are not the same thing.

We can accept that something has changed without pretending it didn’t matter.

We can continue without forgetting.

We can heal without erasing.

And we can carry something without allowing its weight to keep us from experiencing everything else that is still here.

Maybe wisdom isn’t learning how to let go of everything.

Perhaps it is becoming wise enough to know what must be released, strong enough to carry what remains, and present enough to appreciate what is still here.

Martial arts has spent years teaching me how to put things down.

Right now, life is teaching me something different.

Some things we don’t let go.

We simply learn how to carry them differently.

~Dedicated to my brother from another, Joe.

I love you and miss you dearly.

Reflection

Think for a moment about what you’re carrying.

Is there something you’ve been holding so tightly that perhaps it’s time to begin putting it down?

Or is there something you’ve been trying to “get over” because you believe moving forward requires leaving it behind?

Maybe the question isn’t simply whether we should hold on or let go.

Maybe the better question is:

What deserves to come with us?

Frequently Asked Questions

What does “letting go” mean in martial arts philosophy?

Letting go can mean releasing unnecessary attachment to outcomes, mistakes, ego, anger, or circumstances we cannot control. In training, this allows students to remain present and respond to what is happening now rather than becoming trapped by what has already happened.

Is non-attachment the same as not caring?

No. Non-attachment does not have to mean indifference or the absence of love. It can instead mean accepting that people, circumstances, and experiences change while still valuing them deeply.

Can martial arts help someone cope with grief?

Martial arts cannot remove grief, and training should not be treated as a substitute for appropriate emotional or professional support. However, lessons such as presence, community, patience, self-awareness, and accepting help from others may provide a meaningful framework while someone moves through a difficult period.

Does resilience mean “bouncing back” after a loss?

Not necessarily. Some experiences change us permanently. Resilience can also mean learning how to continue living meaningfully while accepting that we may not return to exactly who we were before.

How can Taekwondo teach students about difficult emotions?

Taekwondo regularly places students in situations involving frustration, uncertainty, disappointment, pressure, and vulnerability. With thoughtful instruction, these experiences can help students practice patience, emotional regulation, perseverance, humility, and accepting support from others.