The Art of Letting Go: Embracing Life's Natural Flow

I've been thinking a lot about letting go recently. This thinking was brought on by a conversation I was having with a death coach (yes there is such a thing), Emily Chadbourne is the owner of Life Before Death, her tag line "making death a little less shit by making the living part the main event" really stuck with me. 

Of course as soon as we are born we all start dying, each day we are all inching closer and closer to that moment.  When you put this lens on life, it does make you sit up and pay a bit more attention to whether you are #livingyourbestlife (🤮 I hate that #, but the sentiment I agree with!)

Letting go is often misunderstood. We’re taught to accumulate success, memories, objects, relationships. But rarely are we taught how to release, how to make peace with loss, or how to clear space for what’s truly meaningful. And yet, life itself is a journey of letting go. Letting go is an essential life skill that allows you to meet change with grace, make peace with death, and live more fully in the present.

From birth, we begin a lifelong cycle of attachment and detachment. We form connections, build homes, collect memories and slowly, often reluctantly, we’re asked to release them. Jobs change. People pass on. Our own bodies age and shift. This is the human condition.

The people who navigate these transitions with grace are often those who have learned, consciously or unconsciously, to practice letting go as a way of life, not just in moments of loss, but in everyday acts of release. When you understand that letting go is not something to resist, but something to embrace, you gain emotional resilience, inner peace, and a deeper connection to what truly matters.

In my work supporting clients with decluttering and emotional release, I’ve seen the profound difference between those who live lightly and those who never quite learned to let go.

One client, preparing for the end of her life, asked me to help her “go light.” She wanted to ensure her children didn’t have to wade through decades of paperwork, trinkets, and unclear legacies. Her motivation wasn’t fear, it was love. She saw letting go not as loss, but as a gift.

In contrast, I’ve worked with family members left behind after a death who were burdened with enormous emotional weight. One woman confided, “It’s not dealing with all this stuff, it’s the emotional load of trying to decide what mattered to someone who never made peace with their own things.”

What you fail to release in life, you often pass on, intentionally or not. This is why letting go isn’t just personal. It’s relational. It’s legacy work.

Your home can become a museum of unresolved memories. Every drawer, shelf, or closet might contain stories, hopes, guilt, or attachments. You keep things because:

• “It was a gift.”

• “I might need it someday.”

• “It reminds me of who I used to be.”

But most of those reasons are not rooted in the present. They’re often rooted in social programming, what your parents taught you, what society tells you, or what you see modelled online. Our culture encourages us to define ourselves by what we own. Yet true identity has nothing to do with accumulation. And when you declutter, you're not just clearing physical space you're making room to reconnect with your authentic self.

Letting go of possessions isn’t about being ruthless or cold. It’s about discerning what actually belongs to you vs what is just carrying the weight of someone else’s story.

When you approach decluttering with intention, it becomes a form of mindfulness. You’re not just clearing, you’re noticing. Not just discarding, but deciding.

You start asking questions like:

• “Why did I keep this?”

• “What does this say about what I value?”

• “Am I holding onto something because of love & value, or fear?”

Each item becomes a gateway to self-awareness. Each release becomes an affirmation of presence.

In this way, decluttering isn’t about minimalism. It’s about emotional alignment. It’s about choosing what stays in your space based on who you are, not who you were, or who someone else wanted you to be, or who you think you should be. 

One philosophy that beautifully mirrors this approach is what the Swedes call “döstädning,” or death cleaning, a term introduced to the world by Margareta Magnusson in her bestselling book, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning.

Contrary to how it sounds, death cleaning is not morbid—it’s liberating. It's the practice of gradually letting go of possessions you no longer need so that your loved ones don’t have to do it for you after you're gone. Magnusson encourages people to start this practice in midlife or beyond, not out of urgency, but out of love. She writes with gentle humour and practical wisdom, inviting us to prepare not only our homes but our hearts for what’s ahead.

Death cleaning helps us ask: What do I truly need to hold onto? What legacy do I want to leave behind?

It is, in every sense, a spiritual decluttering practice.

By practicing letting go of stuff  throughout your life,  relationships, roles, expectations, you soften the fear of the ultimate release: death. Those who have regularly released with grace tend to meet the end with less regret, less panic, and more peace. They’ve practiced this rhythm. Their nervous system is familiar with surrender. They understand that dying is not a cruel interruption, but a continuation of a life lived with awareness, presence, and clarity.

Perhaps the most overlooked benefit of this practice is its ripple effect. When you let go of what no longer serves you, your clutter, your emotional baggage, your performative identities, you don’t just feel lighter. You gift clarity to your loved ones. You model what it looks like to live present and free. You ease their future burden. You create space for more honest connection, less about “stuff,” more about soul.

Letting go is not about detachment, it’s about devotion to what matters most.

It’s not about losing, it’s about choosing.
Choosing presence over performance.
Clarity over clutter.
Peace over perfection.

Whether you begin by clearing a single drawer or questioning a long-held belief, know that each small release is an act of radical self-love and sacred preparation.

You are not just making space.
You are making peace 

Have a beautiful day lovely 💛

P.S. If this resonated with you and you're craving a calmer, more intentional way to live at home,  not just with your stuff, but your energy, time, and values, that’s exactly what we explore inside The Intentional Home. It’s not about minimalism, it’s about meaning.
You can learn more about it here

P.P.S. You can check out my other blog posts here