I mean it. Stop it.
Letting go of attachment is a Buddhist teaching that has entered mainstream vernacular and it has suffered in the translation. I don’t claim to represent Buddhism on this one, but I can see how people are beating themselves up with the common interpretation of this idea.
I often hear people talk about the pain in their life and then add that they are trying to “let it go”. Often it hits my ear as a rejection of pain and one’s own experience. It’s a knee-jerk reaction to not wanting to feel disappointed or hurt or outraged.
What if you have a good reason to feel that way? Rejecting pain may actually put you in harm’s way. If the source of the disappointment, hurt or outrage hasn’t been addressed, you can expect to feel more of same. Acknowledging the pain means they you accept the responsibility of making changes in your outer and/or inner world. “Letting it go” will then flow organically from acceptance and resolution.
I appreciate that enlightened masters may actually be able to go from injury to acceptance instantaneously. But then they may never have been injured in the first place. For the rest of us, honoring our experience includes accepting our pain as a signal that we need to do something different.