Meditation: Symbols of Letting Go

This is a companion post to my video, “Meditation for Starting Over When Life Falls Apart” which is embedded below.

Discovering Meditation

I didn’t come to meditation the traditional way. I came to it the way I come to most things: through objects, small rituals, and finding meaning in things some people would walk right past.

For as long as I can remember, when something in my life has needed to end (a relationship, a chapter, a version of myself I was ready to set down) I’ve found it easier to do that through something I could use as a physical symbol rather than through willpower alone.

• A stone.
• A photograph.
• Something small enough to hold in one hand, and symbolic enough to hold everything else.

I think a lot of people do this without naming it. You might keep a ticket stub from the night everything changed. Someone else might finally throw out the shirt that used to mean something more. You drive past the old house one more time before you stop needing to.

It’s absolutely normal to look for something real we can touch that represents the intangible thing we can’t quite hold in our hands: grief, anger, hope, the space where a whole life used to be.

A Tangible Symbol

That’s where the seed in the meditation video I shared above comes from.

In the shared meditation video’s guided journey, you’re asked to imagine setting down something heavy (a bag, a stone, whatever your mind reaches for) and then picking up something small and unfinished instead: a single seed that you eventually press into open ground. Not a fully grown thing. Not a guarantee. Just a beginning, small enough to fit in your palm.

That’s intentional. Starting over rarely feels like a grand event. More often, it’s a quiet, almost embarrassingly small moment, a decision made alone, in an ordinary place, that only means something because you decided it did. Nobody else has to understand the symbol for it to work. It only has to mean something to you.

Finding Your Own Symbol for Meditation

If you want to try this yourself, you don’t need anything elaborate. The most powerful symbols are usually the ones you find rather than the ones you go looking for. A few ideas to get you started:

• A stone or rock, picked up somewhere meaningful, to represent something heavy you’re ready to set down
• A coin, especially a worn or tarnished one, to represent something that once felt valuable and no longer does
• A dead leaf or flower, to represent a season of your life that’s naturally finished
• A candle, lit and allowed to burn down, to represent letting something reach its natural end
• A knot tied in string or ribbon, then untied, to represent releasing something you’ve been holding onto
• A piece of paper with a word or name written on it, folded small, then let go of (burned, buried, or released outdoors)
• A seed or small plant, like in this meditation, to represent a beginning rather than an ending
• A photograph you no longer need to keep, released rather than destroyed, if release feels gentler than erasure

There’s no right object. The only requirement is that it means something to you when you hold it, and that you’re willing to let it go once it’s done its job.

If you’ve ever done something like this: assigned an object a weight it couldn’t possibly hold on its own, and felt lighter afterward for choosing to release it, you already understand the meditation on a level a lot of people won’t. You don’t need me to explain letting go to you. You’ve already practiced it.

Ready to Give It a Try?

If you haven’t, maybe this is an invitation. The next time something needs to end, look around. You might already be standing near the thing that’s about to mean everything, however small it looks.

🌱 Watch the meditation above or click here: Meditation for Starting Over When Life Falls Apart
More resources for starting over: Start Again Studio

📓 And if you want to plan out your fresh start, here’s one of my favorite journal/planner combos for you to check out: Intrinsic Vicissitude Planner on Amazon → https://www.amazon.com/Intrinsic-Vicissitude-Do-List-Planner/dp/B0C9S8NXT5