The Aerodynamics of Letting Go Part 6
Everything you’ve been told about “letting go” is a beautiful, comforting lie.
It’s a lie whispered in self-help books and pastel-colored Instagram quotes. They tell you to just “release it,” as if your trauma, your heartbreak, your failure is a balloon you can simply open your fist and watch float away. But you’ve tried that, haven’t you? You’ve opened your hand, and the damn thing just stays there, heavy as lead.
And if you’re seeing the “Part 6” in the title and thinking you’ve missed something, let me tell you a secret: you’re in the perfect place. You don’t need the backstory. In fact, it’s better if you’re coming in cold, because we’re not building on old theories. We’re burning them to the ground.
I Learned to Fly a Wreckage
Seven years ago, my first company imploded.
It wasn't a gentle landing—it was a full-on, fiery crash on a runway I thought I owned. I lost $250,000 of my own money, another $500,000 from investors I respected, and I had to personally lay off 12 people I considered family. For six months after, I’d wake up in a cold sweat, the hollow echo of that empty office ringing in my ears.
Everyone told me to “let it go.” To “move on.” To “learn from it.”
I wanted to scream. It was like they were telling a pilot, sitting in the smoking cockpit of a crashed plane, to simply “let go” of the wreckage. You can’t. You’re in it. It’s a part of you.
The only way out wasn't by letting go. It was by understanding the physics of the crash. It was by studying the forces that brought me down, and more importantly, the hidden forces that could get me airborne again, even with a patched-up wing and a sputtering engine.
This is the aerodynamics of staying aloft when your life has fallen out of the sky. Forget balloons. We’re talking about the four fundamental forces that govern your emotional altitude.
1. Lift: The Shocking Power of Radical Acceptance
We think of “lift” as a magical, upward force. But in aerodynamics, lift is generated by air moving faster over the top of a wing than underneath it. It's a principle of pressure dynamics.
The same is true for your emotional state.
Radical Acceptance isn’t surrender; it’s the engine of lift.
For a year, I fought reality. I replayed every decision, every email, every missed opportunity. I was trying to fly by sheer willpower, flapping my arms and cursing the sky for not cooperating. I was generating zero lift.
Radical Acceptance is looking at the wreckage around you and saying, out loud: “This is it. This is what happened. It is real. And it is unchangeable.”
It’s not saying “I’m okay with it.” It’s not forgiveness. It’s not silver linings. It’s the brutal, non-judgmental acknowledgment of what is. It’s the pilot accepting they are in a storm, rather than wishing for clear skies. Only then can they actually start flying the plane.
The moment I stopped fighting the fact that my company failed, the pressure started to change. The frantic energy I was wasting on denial could finally be redirected. You cannot navigate a new course until you accept your current coordinates, no matter how deep in enemy territory they are.
Where are you right now? What brutal reality are you refusing to acknowledge? Say it. Write it down. That’s not the end. That’s the beginning of your lift.
2. Thrust: The Lie of the Grand Gesture
Thrust is the force that moves the aircraft forward. We’re obsessed with the idea that moving on requires a grand gesture—quitting your job, moving across the country, a dramatic confrontation.
This is a lie designed to keep you paralyzed.
The truth nobody tells you is that sustainable thrust comes from the smallest, most pathetic-seeming actions.
After my company died, I didn’t write a new business plan. I didn’t network. For two weeks, my only goal was to put on my running shoes and walk to the end of the block and back. That was it. Some days, that felt like climbing Everest.
But every tiny action—making your bed, answering one email, drinking a glass of water—is a small pulse from your engine. It says, “I am still moving forward.”
Grand gestures are like a rocket launch: spectacular, high-energy, and utterly unsustainable. They often lead to burnout and a crash back to Earth. Small, consistent actions are like an efficient jet engine. They don’t look like much from the outside, but they will carry you across continents.
Forget the five-year plan. What is the one-millimeter action you can take in the next 10 minutes? That’s your thrust. Start the engine.
3. Drag: Why "Closure" Is the Most Dangerous Myth in Modern Psychology
Drag is the force that opposes thrust. It’s the resistance. In our lives, we call it the past, our baggage, our regrets. And we spend our entire lives trying to eliminate it.
We hunt for "closure." We believe there’s a magical conversation, an apology, or a moment of understanding that will make the drag disappear forever.
Let me be brutally honest: Closure is a myth. It does not exist.
It’s a concept invented by screenwriters to give a story a tidy ending. Life isn’t a movie. You will never get a perfect apology. You will never fully understand why some things happened. You will never find a magic eraser for the pain.
Seeking closure is like trying to fly in a vacuum. You’re trying to eliminate a fundamental force of nature. It’s impossible and exhausting.
Here’s the secret the survivors know: You don’t eliminate drag. You make yourself more aerodynamic.
You learn to fly with the resistance. You accept that the memory of your failure, your ex, your loss, will always be a part of your slipstream. It’s a part of what shapes you. The trick isn’t to get rid of it, but to change your relationship with it.
It’s the scar that reminds you of the lesson. It’s the turbulence that makes you a better pilot. You don't get closure; you create distance. The memory is still there, but you're a thousand miles ahead of it, and its pull gets weaker with every inch of thrust you generate.
Stop searching for the final chapter. There isn't one. Start focusing on your own design.
4. Weight: The Art of Strategic Surrender
Weight is the force of gravity pulling you down. It’s the burden of responsibility, the expectations of others, the identity you cling to.
We think resilience is about being strong enough to carry all of it. This is wrong. True resilience is about being wise enough to know what to drop.
Pilots call it "jettisoning." In an emergency, they dump fuel and cargo to gain altitude. It’s a ruthless, strategic decision. They aren’t "giving up." They are making a calculated choice to save the entire aircraft.
You are carrying things you were never meant to hold.
- The weight of someone else’s happiness.
- The weight of a dream you had when you were 22.
- The weight of proving your parents, your rivals, or your old boss wrong.
- The weight of the person you used to be.
For me, the heaviest piece of cargo was the identity of "successful tech founder." I clung to it long after the company was a crater in the ground. It was keeping my nose pointed firmly at the earth.
Letting it go wasn't a moment of weakness. It was a moment of supreme, strategic power. It was my act of jettisoning. I had to choose: do I want to keep this identity, or do I want to fly?
You can’t have both.
Look at the cargo in your hold. What are you carrying that is not essential to the flight? It’s time to be ruthless. The act of letting go isn’t a passive release. It is an active, deliberate, and often painful choice to prioritize altitude above all else.
Your Pre-Flight Checklist for Staying Aloft
So, what does this all mean for you, right now, as you sit here reading this? It means that letting go isn't a single event. It’s the constant, dynamic interplay of these four forces.
Here’s the simple truth:
- Lift: Stop fighting what is. Acknowledge your exact location, your exact situation, without judgment. That is the only place you can take off from.
- Thrust: Forget the grand plan. Focus on the next pathetic-seeming action. Walk to the corner. Send one text. Do one push-up. These tiny pulses are what get you off the ground.
- Drag: Give up the hunt for closure. It’s a ghost. Let the past be your slipstream, not your anchor. It’s there, but you are moving forward.
- Weight: Be a ruthless pilot. What identity, what expectation, what old dream are you carrying that is keeping you from gaining altitude? Jettison it. Now.
You don’t have to feel "healed" to fly again. You just have to understand the physics. You can be heartbroken and still generate thrust. You can be terrified and still generate lift. You can be a patched-together, smoke-stained, dented aircraft and still climb towards the sun.
The sky is waiting.
My question for you is this: What is the one piece of "weight" you're carrying that you know, deep down, you could jettison today?
Leave your answer in the comments. Your story might just be the permission someone else needs to finally take flight.
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