Letting Go of Painful Narratives: How Mindfulness, Movement & Equanimity Free Us from the Grip of Control

Yesterday, something unexpected happened. I was walking my dog with my husband through the open space behind our house when we ran into our neighbor, who had two dogs of his own. We agreed to let all the dogs run off leash—a little spontaneous playtime.

He gave us a heads up: one of the dogs, a big, joyful retriever, can be a bit much. And sure enough, while we were chatting, that Golden Retriever came bounding through the tall grass and hit me square from behind. I went down—hard. On my butt, in slow motion. No way to stop it.

I stood up, smiled, and dusted myself off. I joked that I should’ve remembered the first rule of off-leash dog play: don’t take your eyes off the dogs! I was okay—just a bit shaken, a bit sore. The dog owner felt terrible. But we kept chatting, and I tried to shake it off.

As we walked away, though, I noticed my mind doing its thing.

My thoughts spiraled:

“What if all the progress I’ve made in physical therapy is undone?”

“Why did I stop paying attention?”

“What if this makes the hip worse?”

“I should’ve known better.”

That’s the moment I caught myself. I watched the narrative forming in my mind: the black-and-white thinking, the catastrophizing, the judgment, the tight grip on what I thought shouldn’t have happened.

And this is where the real practice came in.

Using the very skills I teach in Mindful and Intuitive Eating, I breathed. I softened. I saw the story for what it was: a reaction, not reality. The truth? I fell. It hurt. I’d rest. I’d see how I felt tomorrow. That’s it.

And the next day? Still sore, yes. But the groin pain I’d been obsessing over for weeks—oddly, better.

This experience brought me back to something I talk about often: how we hold ourselves tightly—not just in the body, but in our beliefs about the body. We cling to routines, to how we think we should eat, move, and look. We tighten our grip on the idea that doing things “right” will lead to perfection. But that perfection is a myth. And the grip itself is what creates suffering.

As Buddhist teacher Shinzen Young puts it:

Pain + Resistance = Suffering

I felt that formula working in real time. The pain from the fall was real. But the resistance, the narrative, the frustration, the worry—was optional. And when I let that go, the suffering eased.

Another of Shinzen Young’s powerful teachings is this:

Equanimity is the radical permission to feel.

Not to fix, control, or perfect. Just to feel. To let it be.

Equanimity isn’t indifference.

It’s a steady, compassionate presence that allows pain or joy to move through us without clinging or resisting. It's a state of mental and emotional stability, even under stress. Equanimity is about non-interference, being fully present without judgment, even when things feel hard.

Two days later, I ran into my neighbor again. Same dogs, same trail. We agreed again to let the dogs off leash. This time, I didn’t turn my back on the big lab, but I also didn’t feel fear or hesitation. That lab flopped onto his back in front of me, joyfully wriggling in the dry grass. All I felt was affection.

And I realized something else: healing work, rehabilitation, none of it is permanent. You don’t “arrive.” You don’t finish.

Sometimes a setback comes right after a breakthrough. That doesn’t mean the work is wasted. It just means the journey continues.

My attachment to being pain-free isn’t helpful. Enjoying the moments of ease, that’s where the joy is. That’s what I want to savor.

This experience echoed the themes I had been teaching in yoga earlier that day—about releasing and letting go. The moon was nearing its darkest phase, and I often weave the current lunar cycle into my classes. I like to “point to the moon,” so to speak, as a reminder that nature offers us a rhythm to live by. Like mindfulness, the moon moves through phases—ebbing and flowing, waxing and waning—and quietly invites us to do the same. Whether it’s the pull of the moon or the steadiness of your breath, remember your guides. They’re always there, offering gentle encouragement to soften, to pause, to let go just a little more. Notice what arises in the space that follows.

What if releasing control isn’t failure, but freedom?

What if your worth isn’t defined by your discipline, but by your presence?

What if your body is not a project to fix, but a companion to care for?

As I stood on the trail, brushing off dirt and noticing the pain but not collapsing into it, I felt something unfamiliar but steady: peace. Not because I “handled it well,” but because I didn’t get stuck. I remembered that I have a choice in how I respond.

There will be more stories. More pain. More surprises. But there will also be more opportunities to release, like the moon does, and to begin again, like the moon always does.

This is the cycle: release, rest, return. We don’t have to grip so tightly. There’s so much life waiting to flow in when we let go.