Why You Can't Let Go

The Narratives That Define (and Confine) You

In Tolstoy's masterpiece Anna Karenina, we encounter one of literature's most vivid portraits of the difficulty of change. Caught in an unhappy marriage, Anna falls passionately in love with Count Vronsky and glimpses the possibility of a different life.

Yet despite her desperate desire for transformation, Anna remains trapped—not just by social conventions but by her own conflicting narratives. She cannot fully relinquish her identity as a respectable wife and mother, even as she yearns to embrace a new story of passionate fulfillment.

"I am still the same," she laments, "but in me there is another being, and I'm afraid of her."

Why Change Feels Impossible

Tolstoy knew what makes change so profoundly difficult.

He knew genuine transformation demands altering our narratives—the deeply ingrained stories we tell ourselves about who we are and our place in the world. And these narratives constitute our very identity.

In other words, when we contemplate significant change, we face more than inconvenience—we encounter existential vertigo, fearing that changing our story might cause us to lose ourselves entirely.

Consider a striking example: a former professional soccer player now in his forties. He remained haunted by a championship match he had lost twenty years earlier.

Every night, he replayed the match in his mind, imagining victory. And every Saturday afternoon, for two decades, rain or shine, he practiced the moves he wished he'd made, dribbling the ball left and right and then kicking into the goal.

He spent thousands of nights and hundreds of afternoons trying to correct an immutable past. If we look closely at ourselves, we are probably doing something similar: a fumbled conversation, an opportunity missed, a decision we regret.

The Narratives That Hold Us Hostage

He did this because he was clinging to three core narratives:

First, he believed he could have changed the outcome—a story akin to parents fixating on past parenting mistakes. "I could have done better," we tell ourselves, carrying unnecessary burdens.

Second, he maintained the belief that the championship loss still mattered. Twenty years had passed, but his mind remained frozen, allowing that match to define his sense of self.

Third, and most subtly, he believed his ritual of replaying the past provided comfort and healing. He never questioned whether this ritual genuinely brought relief.

His belief was not rational. But it remained powerful nonetheless.

Our narratives transcend rationality because they operate at multiple levels—personal identities, family traditions, communal values, and cultural myths.

To genuinely change means disrupting not just one story but a quilt of interwoven narratives.

Not all narratives are bad. Some undergird our faith, our joys, our deepest passions. But real change means looking at all of the stories we tell ourselves with clear eyes and an open heart.

Genuine Change Requires Letting Go

Indeed, real transformation demands more than mere willpower or superficial adjustments. It requires releasing the stories that have defined us—stepping, however briefly, into the unknown territory of a self not yet narrated.

This can feel terrifying because without familiar stories, we fear we might cease to exist in any recognizable form.

Recall Franz Kafka's masterpiece The Metamorphosis, where Gregor Samsa awakens transformed into a monstrous insect, abruptly stripped of his human identity. Without his familiar narratives—provider, son, brother—Gregor faces alienation and profound disorientation, ultimately rejected by his own family.

Kafka’s stark story remains one of the best illustrations of the existential terror that arises when our stories suddenly vanish, leaving us without clear reference points.

Ancient Wisdom for Modern Change

Jewish tradition offers profound insights into how we can use this transformation for the good.

Our sacred texts describe individuals—and an entire people—called to transform, leaving behind familiar narratives to journey from slavery to freedom, from narrowness (mitzrayim) to expansiveness.

The Hebrew word for repentance, teshuvah, literally means "return"—not reverting to a former state but returning to our authentic selves, beneath accumulated narratives.

This perspective resonates deeply with the Buddhist teacher Joseph Goldstein’s wisdom. When asked to summarize his teachings into one piece of advice, he said, "Don't cling, don't grasp."

By releasing our grip on the stories we have told ourselves—about identity, significance, and regrets—we create space for profound transformation.

What makes releasing their grip so hard is the resistance we feel. But remember: the fear, rationalization, and anxiety underlying that resistance stems not from the change itself, but from our attachment to unhealthy and outdated narratives.

Drop the narrative, and the resistance dissolves. Emotions that seemed intractable reveal themselves as mere shadows.

Embracing the Space Between Stories

Perhaps the deepest form of change begins not by crafting a new narrative but by briefly existing without one. Standing openly in that moment of uncertainty creates a sacred interval, ripe with possibility.

In that space between narratives lies the seed of genuine transformation.