You do the thing properly. You sit with a feeling instead of running from it, and it fades.
Then an hour later you are flat, tearful, or oddly irritable, and you have no idea why.
Most people take that as proof they did it wrong. I think it is usually the opposite.
TL;DR
Feeling worse after letting something go is common and it caught me out for weeks. My honest read is that you were using the tension to hold other things down, so when it goes, what was underneath gets room. It usually shows up as flatness, tearfulness, or old memories arriving uninvited. That is different from a warning sign, and the test I use is whether it settles within a day or two and whether you can still function. If it does not settle, or you cannot, that is the point to stop and speak to someone trained, not to push harder. Going gentler is almost always the right adjustment, and never nothing at all.
In this article
The Bit Nobody Warns You About
Almost everything written about letting go stops at the good part. You feel the feeling, you stop fighting it, it burns out, you feel lighter.
That does happen. It is genuinely the thing that changed my life, and I still do it every day.
What I was not told is that a decent number of sessions end somewhere else entirely. Not lighter. Just open, and a bit raw.
Because it is not what you were told to expect, it is very easy to read as evidence the technique is not working. I think that is the wrong conclusion, and it is the reason I wanted to write this one down.
If you want the technique itself rather than the aftermath, it is written out step by step in how I let go of negative thoughts and feelings every day.
Three Things That Get Mistaken for Failure
These are the three that come up most, both in my own practice and in what people write to me about.
Flatness. Not sadness exactly. More like the colour has come out of the afternoon. This is the most common one by a distance.
Tearfulness at nothing. An advert, a song, someone being kind to you in a shop. It arrives sideways and out of proportion to whatever set it off.
Old things turning up. A memory you had not thought about in years, arriving with its feelings still attached and no obvious reason for being there.
None of those are signs you did it wrong. All three are what it looks like when something that was being held down stops being held down.
Why Old Things Come Up When You Stop Fighting
Here is the mechanism as I understand it, and I want to be clear this is my read rather than anything clinical.
There are only four things you can do with a difficult feeling. Suppress it, vent it, escape it, or let it go. The first three manage it. Only the fourth actually removes it.
Suppression is the one most of us default to, and it is not free. It takes constant low-level effort, like keeping a door shut with your shoulder.
Now let one thing go properly. You take your shoulder off the door for the first time in years.
What was behind it comes forward. Not because you broke something, but because you finally stopped holding it.
That is what the flatness and the old memories usually are. Not new pain. Old pain that had nowhere to go while you were busy.
It is also, I think, a large part of why I got stuck for six years. I stopped doing the daily work when my first was born, and the unreleased quietly piled up until it was running the show. That story is in feeling stuck in life.
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Get the Free Email SeriesThe Flat Afternoon After a Good Release
I want to describe this one properly, because it is the one that confused me longest.
You let something significant go. It genuinely fades. You feel clear for maybe twenty minutes.
Then the afternoon goes grey. Nothing is wrong. You are not upset about anything you can name. You just have no lift in you.
My honest read is that a lot of what I called energy was actually tension. Being wound up is a kind of fuel, and it is not a good one, but it does get you through a day.
Take it away and the first thing you notice is the absence of it. That reads as flat, because compared to wound up, calm feels like nothing at all.
It stops reading that way after a few weeks. Calm starts feeling like calm rather than like something missing.
How to Tell a Dip From a Warning
This distinction matters more than anything else here, so I want to be plain about it.
A dip settles. It moves. It is uncomfortable but it does not stop you doing your day, and by tomorrow or the day after it has changed shape.
A warning does not settle. It gets louder, it stays, and it starts taking things from you. Sleep, function, your sense of being here.
The test I use on myself is two questions. Has it moved at all since yesterday? And can I still do the ordinary things, work, kids, meals, conversation?
If both answers are yes, I go gentler and carry on. If either is no, I stop and talk to someone.
That is not me being cautious for the sake of it. Sitting still removes the distractions you were using to avoid what is underneath, and for a minority of people what surfaces is more than a flat afternoon.
When to Stop and Get Support
I teach this practice because it changed my life, and I would rather be honest about its edges than sell it.
Brown University research found side effects from meditation are far more common than the apps suggest, and that a minority of people get effects serious enough to affect daily functioning. That is worth knowing before you start, not after.
Stop, and speak to a doctor or a trained professional, if you get any of these:
Panic that will not settle. Feeling detached from yourself or from reality. Reliving trauma. Being unable to sleep. Being unable to function.
Those are not signs you are doing it wrong either. They are signs this is not the right tool for what is currently coming up, and that you need someone trained alongside you.
For anything milder than that, the adjustment is almost always the same. Go shorter and gentler rather than quitting. Five minutes instead of twenty. Eyes open. A walk instead of sitting still.
I am not a trained life coach or counsellor, and I am not medically trained. What I write here sits alongside professional support, never instead of it. There is more on this in why meditation can make you feel worse.
What I Do on Those Days
Less, mostly.
I keep the practice, because skipping it entirely is how six years happened last time. But I shrink it. Five minutes of counting my breath to ten, and that is the whole thing.
I do not try to work out what came up. Analysing the memory puts you back in the story, and the story is not where the feeling lives.
I try not to make the flatness mean anything about how the work is going. That is the hardest part, and I still get it wrong. It is very easy to decide a flat afternoon proves you have gone backwards, and that thought is itself something to let go of.
Then I go and do something ordinary with my kids. A park, no plan, no phone. That does more for a grey afternoon than any technique I know.
What It Looks Like After a Few Weeks
The dips get shorter. That is the first thing that changes.
Then they get less frequent, because there is less piled up behind the door. The amount of it is not endless, and you are working through the backlog.
Then something better happens, and this is the part worth staying for. You stop needing the tension. Days stop running on being wound up, and calm stops feeling like an absence.
None of that is quick and I cannot tell you how long it takes for you. It took me weeks of practice before it started to feel natural, and there are still days I do not manage it at all.
Twenty minutes a day, done because it means something to you, and five minutes on the days that is too much. Never nothing. That is the whole method, and it is laid out properly in the 20-minute rule.
Had one of these and not sure what it was?
Tell me what came up and what it felt like afterwards. I will tell you honestly what I think, including if I think you should talk to someone trained instead. No sales pitch, ever.
Contact MeCommon Questions
Does feeling worse mean I did it wrong?
Usually not. The most common version is flatness a few hours later, and my read is that you were using tension as fuel without knowing it. Take the tension away and calm reads as nothing at all for a while. That is a shift in what you are comparing against, not a failure of the technique.
How long should the dip last?
I would not put a number on it, because it varies and I do not want you measuring yourself against mine. The direction matters far more than the duration. If it has moved at all since yesterday, carry on more gently. If it has not moved, or it is getting heavier, stop and talk to someone rather than pushing through it.
Why did an old memory come up out of nowhere?
Because holding one thing down takes effort that also holds other things down. Let the first one go and you have taken your shoulder off the door. I would not go digging into the memory though. Analysing it puts you back in the story, and the feeling lives in your body, not in the story.
Should I stop doing this if it keeps happening?
Go smaller before you stop. Five minutes instead of twenty, eyes open, or a walk instead of sitting still. Stopping altogether is what I did for six years and the unreleased just piled up. The exception is the stop signals above, and those are not a case for going gentler. They are a case for talking to someone trained.
Is this the same as things getting worse before they get better?
I am wary of that phrase, because it can be used to talk someone out of a genuine warning sign. Some dips are part of it. Some are a signal to stop. I would rather you had the two questions, has it moved and can you still function, than a saying that makes everything sound fine.
Do you still get these?
Yes. And I still sometimes decide a flat afternoon means I have gone backwards, which is its own thing to let go of. That one has not stopped. I just catch it faster than I used to.
Written by Harry
Not a trained life coach or counsellor, just sharing what has helped me on my own journey. For more free guides on confidence, self-belief and letting go, visit the blog. To read the full story, see the about page.