letting go in the face of loss
While the new year is typically a season marking fresh starts, new beginnings, and resolute goals, 2025 has ushered in catastrophic wildfires all throughout Southern California. Over 23,400 acres were scorched in the Palisades, 14,000+ in Eaton, and 10,400+ in the Hughes fires with many other fires in surrounding areas.
There are moments in life when letting go is not a choice, but a necessity—when the things we hold dear are stripped away before we’re ready. A wildfire sweeps through a home that held decades of memories. A layoff pulls the rug out from under a career built with years of effort and sacrifice. The loss of a loved one, whether expected or not, forces a redefinition of love, security, and self. In these moments, we are not the ones making the choice to release; life makes it for us.
This got me thinking about the notion of “letting go” and how much it’s a feat that is so much easier said than done. Sometimes we get to choose to let go from an empowered state of immersing into the unknown and yet at other times, we have it thrust upon us. Life doesn’t always give us control over what we must let go of — it can be stripped away or evolve into something distant and unfamiliar.
When something is taken from us— especially abruptly and without our consent—it can take a staggering emotional toll. First, there’s grief for what was lost, then fear of what comes next, and often, an underlying resistance to accepting the change at all. The emotional world could muddy our experience, coming to us as:
Shock + Disbelief: “This can’t be happening.”
The mind struggles to grasp that life has shifted towards a different direction than anticipated.
Anger + Resistance: “This isn’t fair. Why me?”
There is a natural desire to fight against what has happened, to search for someone or something to blame.
Sadness + Grief: “I don’t know how to move forward.”
Even when the loss isn’t physical, the weight of its absence is felt deeply.
It would be a much simpler road to default into feelings of powerlessness in these moments. Unlike a conscious decision to let go, where we prepare ourselves for change, situations with sudden loss offer no grace period. They come uninvited, shifting our reality in an instant.
At our core, humans crave stability, predictability, and control. So we resist letting go. We build routines, relationships, and roadmaps with the expectation that they will endure. When life disrupts this, our first instinct is often to cling—to the past, to what was, to what we thought our lives would look like.
But resistance does not undo the loss. Holding tightly to what’s already gone does not bring it back. And while grief and resistance are natural, they can also keep us from seeing the possibilities that lie beyond the pain.
Letting go—especially when we didn’t choose to—does not mean we have to pretend it doesn’t hurt. We can feel the hurt, sadness, and disorientation. It doesn’t mean we have to “move on” immediately or dismiss the depth of what was lost. But within every ending, there is spiritually already another path unfolding abound with new opportunity.
Even in the wake of destruction, new life finds a way. Wildfires clear space for regrowth. Layoffs lead to new opportunities once unconsidered. Losing a loved one can create space for deeper self-understanding and worthiness. While we aren’t able to always choose what to release, we can begin to reclaim our peace by choosing how to move forward. Intention brings in a sense of renewal to transform loss into reclaimed purpose.
According to Aristotle, we can draw our world into three parts: thinking, feeling, and doing. In order to manage stress in the face of adversity, something must shift in one of these areas. Some of the longest living creatures on this planet are tortoises, from which we can draw divine wisdom from. With a life span of 100+ years (some living up to 250 years), tortoises will take an average of four breaths per minute. When everything surrounding feels like chaos, it’s our breath that can restore our internal resilience and bring us back into harmony.
When we close the eyes to mindfully tap into breathwork, it’s as though closing out the visual stimuli allows for the clarity needed to take a deeper dive inwards. Thoughts and emotions float like passing clouds until eventually fading into the background in turn allowing us to attune to physical sensations and the adjustments necessary to bring more ease.
Surrender Breath Exercise:
(Affirmation: With each exhale, I release. With each inhale, I renew and reclaim.)
Settle into stillness. Find a quiet place to retreat to. You can either sit or lie down, whichever allows you to feel the most comfortable + supported. Place one hand over the heart and another over the tummy.
Take a deep inhale. Draw in a breath through your nose, visualizing the breath moving from the tummy and ascending all the way to the head for a count of 4-5 seconds.
Hold the breath. Once your breath reaches the crown of your head, hold for 4-5 more seconds and observe + acknowledge any rising emotions.
Exhale. Slowly, release the breath for a count of 5-8 seconds. You can take an audible sigh to energetically symbolize the shedding.
Pause and repeat. Hold the breath at the exhale and then repeat the cycle again for a duration of 5-10 minutes.
We can return to this breathwork exercise when we catch ourselves holding our breath, anxiously fearing the unknown, and/or in need of an emotional release to soothe + regulate the nervous system. Taking this moment of pause can be a powerful first step to meditating on how to take the next one.
When life forces us to let go, we are left with a choice—not about what happened, but about how we respond. We can cling to what no longer is, or we can begin the slow, deliberate process of making peace with what is. And maybe, just maybe, in that process, we will find something new waiting for us on the other side.
If you’re ready to let go and reclaim your abundance, you can schedule a 1:1 complimentary consultation here.
Kim Yamasaki is a Christian wellness coach who supports her clients in cultivating space + stillness in the mind, body, and home through collaborative processes of co-creation. She provides services that create space + stillness for deeper connection: coaching, home organizing, and yoga. Her methods are affirming, grounding, and nurturing – all interlaced with playful creativity. She is a native Angeleno with Japanese and Chinese roots.
This article was originally published for the “selah space” newsletter, reclaiming abundance’s care package for go-getters that is released on a monthly basis. “Selah space” offers content to support readers looking to for greater balance by living, loving, and learning deeply to be their most calm, confident, and complete selves. In the Bible, selah means “to pause or to reflect.” It appears most heavily in the Book of Psalms and Habakkuk as musical notations at the end of verses to draw attention back to what was previously expressed.