Mel Robbins was right- Just Let Them
As I grow older and find myself dipping my toes into the ‘real world’, leaving behind the structures of university and school, it has come to my attention that adults have major control issues. I can’t really blame them because we’ve learnt since school that if there’s a problem it is our job to fix it. University life also had massive certainty as to how your days would unfold and you always knew the time table and what was coming next. But once you start leaving those structured environments you start feeling massive uncertainty where there are technically no rules and the fantasy of being and doing anything you want come into play. This fantasy has been sold to us as kids which is why we could not wait to become adults and grow old with nobody telling us what to do. But, when its time to actually test that theory, it leaves us with crippling anxiety and the uncertainty makes us want to take on problems and issues that are not ours to fix or try to fix, in turn creating extreme attachment issues.
This is where I came across a theory- The Let Them theory by Mel Robbins. I initially came across it on Instagram and having already been a fan of her previous work like the 5-second rule, I headed over to YouTube and heard the entire podcast. Now, this theory isn’t anything new and many different versions of this exist across various cultures and in a nutshell the inner peace and happiness we all strive for comes down to just that-mastering detachment. This is what I took away from the Let Them theory. Mel says “if your friends don’t invite you to brunch this weekend, let them’’, I could stop right here because the theory is pretty self-explanatory, it’s basically letting go of things outside your control instead of taking the burden and responsibility of fixing them. In relationships, if the person you are super into wants something casual but you want commitment, its very common to have the “they will change for me’’ fantasy mindset where you want to fix the situation. Applying the Let Them Theory here just means you accepting they want something different and moving on even if that rejection and pain hurts. Fixing things and taking responsibility for things out of your control is the main cause of attachment issues in my opinion and the way to detach is to just accept, not fix it, adjust your reaction and move on. So easy to say but almost 10 times as hard to implement in real life.
The hard pill to swallow as I navigate my 20s is a lot of things are out of my control and a lot of things get way worse when I try to fix and change it as opposed to accepting that there’s not much I can do about it. The latter would bring me peace of mind but goes against everything I’ve learnt in structured environments so it makes the unlearning much much harder. I’ve heard countless self-help coaches and books talk about detaching for inner peace and I’ve also studied stoicism deeply where one of the main stoic ideas dwells upon detaching and not reacting to the hardships of life. But hearing it laid out so simply really stuck with me- So much time and energy is wasted in getting people to match your expectations, if those people are not showing up the way you need them to show up do not force them to change, because in doing so they are also REVEALING who they are to you. Just let them, and then you get to choose what to do next. Wow! Honestly, if this didn’t make you re-think all your life decisions stemming from control, I don’t know what will.
I feel this theory is a great mindfulness exercise-you know all the great meditators and saints who ask you to pause before reacting and instead just respond to situations, this is basically a GenZ version of that. You aren’t frantically reacting to not being invited to brunch by spiraling and overthinking what you did wrong or if you offended your friend over something 5 years ago that you still feel guilty about, you’re just pausing and responding by letting them do what they want to do. You are adjusting your reaction and most times you’ll probably realize some relationships don’t work without you or are one-sided and sometimes you were in love with a person’s potential and not them. All the extra spark and dopamine was just you being attached to an outcome and story in your head. So much of this energy can be diverted back to yourself and catering to your needs instead of fixing something that maybe didn’t need to be fixed in the first place but since you were so attached to it, you felt obligated or compelled to.
Like I said before, much easier said than done, but as I navigate this messy and uncertain decade of my life, I can only use this as a starting point to see what actually and truly aligns with my evolving personality ,mindset and values vs what I think should align and force situations into submission. That being said, I’m excited to get my hands on the copy of the book and like always, Mel thank you for your simplicity and insight, I hope this reaches you somehow.
