Letting Go with Love

Many women I work with on the Côte d’Azur arrive searching for something, a fresh start, freedom from old patterns, or a chance to reinvent themselves.

We often believe that by moving to a new place, we can leave behind what no longer serves us. But our old habits and patterns have a way of following us. In fact, once we’re away from the familiar, they can grow louder. Sleepless nights. Endless “why” questions. Finding ourselves in the same dynamics, just with different faces.

We’ve changed locations, yet the weight we carry inside has moved with us.

Patterns and Habits in Many Forms

Pattern and habits take many forms. Sometimes it’s warmth and cosiness. Other times, it’s absence, longing, or something we can’t seem to break.

These patterns don’t always come from our own experiences. We can carry emotional traces from before our “here and now”: family, communities, religion, relationships, or cultures. These transgenerational patterns shape how we love, connect, and even how we struggle, often without us realising it.

Our relationships, whether with friends, partners, family, or colleagues, are influenced by these deep imprints. Until we become aware of them, change can feel impossible.

The Patterns of Loyalty

Many of us carry something that no longer serves us, a role, a feeling, a behaviour, without knowing why. And that something might be what holds us back from moving forward.

Perhaps you recognise yourself in one of these:

• You withdraw in close relationships, even though you long for connection.

• You feel guilt without knowing its source.

• You struggle to feel you belong, even among those who care for you.

• You take on responsibility as if everything depends on you.

• You carry a heaviness or sadness that doesn’t feel entirely yours.

• You follow others’ lead to keep the peace, even when it goes against your values.

Often, these aren’t just our own struggles. They can be forms of unwanted loyalty patterns, learned ways of staying connected to people or groups through a hope of love that binds us, even when it costs us our own freedom. These loyalties are often rooted in our past and in the influence of others who shaped how we act and feel today.

Even when we understand these patterns, they can be hard to change. That’s because they live in our emotions, our nervous system, and our ways of relating.

Letting Go with Love

The good news is, we can learn to get go without hate, blame and anger but we love. And love is always in motion, flexible, moveable.

Sometimes, though, it gets stuck, not because we love less, but because we carry it in ways that weigh us down.

When we hold back from embracing safe, nourishing loving connections, or when we stay tied to groups and dynamics that no longer warm our heart, we can lose our freedom and lightness. It may show up as restlessness, heaviness, or the same painful patterns repeating themselves.

Real love, real connections don’t ask us to carry the burdens of others. It asks us to live fully, to honour our own journey, and to allow others theirs, with respect and without judgment.

Sometimes, love needs a new form:

• Where we still belong, but are no longer bound by someone else’s pain.

• Where we let go, not in rejection, but in respect.

• Where we set boundaries that feel true to us while still respecting the other person.

  
  

Letting go of what no longer needs to be carried isn’t breaking with the past, it’s honouring it with love, forgiveness and blame free (even when this might be hard), both for ourselves and for those we release. When we do, life begins to flow again.

Love in Motion – In Practice

The first step is making the invisible visible.

When we take time to map out our emotional landscape, the people, events, and feelings that shape our lives, what was once vague becomes clear:

• Who is carrying what (where do what belong to)?

• Who or what has been overlooked (where and with whom do I need to place my attention, love and time)?

• What am I holding that isn’t mine (and how can I let go of it)?

  
  

From that awareness, change becomes possible. Not by force, but through compassion and choice.

When we release what no longer belongs to us, we don’t lose connection. We create space for new ones, connections that allow us to move freely again.

If you feel ready to explore what’s truly yours and what you can lovingly set down, this work can open the door to a lighter, freer way of living — one where love flows forward, unbound, into the life you’re meant to live.

At HerEdge, we strive to connect ladies on the Côte d’Azur through learning and joy. With us, you are never alone.

Your brain will thank you.

 Mette Theilmann Founder of HerEdge Cote d’Azur Club sign up for for weekly event email