It is among the most common things a healing person hears as they work to move on in life.

“Just let it go.”

That phrase used to infuriate me.

It smacked of absolving the perpetrators of their misdeeds. It meant giving up control over how I believed the story should end.

The evildoers should collapse on their knees in front of me and beg for my forgiveness. They should admit all the wrongs they committed. They should express their repentance for the hurt they caused me.

A person could wait around for a really, really long time for that to happen.

There is something comforting in the belief that evildoers may eventually be “hoist on their own petard.” That maybe karma will have its way with them. The hope that one day they would suffer as much as they made us suffer.

All of that is profound wishful thinking that merely gives us an illusion of control.

In the end, there is nothing we can do to shape or alter another’s behavior. Not really. Sure, we can dole out favors and dispense punishments to control those who depend on us.

But serious harm rarely takes place in that type of situation. Keeping children or employees in line is fairly straightforward. One cannot confuse the mindless actions of dependents with the evil intent of those who actually mean us harm.

Healing from harm eventually all comes back to us. We can whine and complain and “woe is me” as long as we like. It will change nothing. It will only keep the pain fresh and alive in us. It will only frustrate and diminish us.

To heal and grow, we must move on. A friend swindled you out of money or position? Unfriend him or her and move on. Your fiance cheated on you? It is up to you to explore your heart and mind to determine if that act can be forgiven or ends the relationship. Someone treats you badly, maybe even assaults you? Get as far away from that person as is humanly possible.

I watch lawyer’s ads on television and they repel me. One lawyer consistently gets high dollar awards for their clients who have been wronged or injured in some kind of accident. The satisfied customers express undying gratitude to the lawyer. They are grateful for their awards as if the lawyer was their savior and the dollar outcome was their due.

It is not their due. It is a game. It is luck of the draw. It is the strength of the fact pattern and narrative. Life owes us nothing.

It is only when that penny drops can we begin to take concrete steps to define what we want and what we can and cannot control. We can control our reactions. We can control our actions. We can decide how to move forward and move on in life.

This is the importance of taking personal responsibility. We are the only ones who can decide that degree to which external events affect us and shape us. Blaming others – the perpetrator, our parents, the system, god, “bad luck” – is a common reaction and revenge tactic when we have been badly hurt.

The problem is that it is ultimately unsatisfying and out of our control.

By taking full and absolute personal responsibility for the impact of our injuries, only then can we devise strong coping strategies and learn to call on the inner strength we all possess in our core.

An injured wild animal will slink off into the woods and find a safe place to hunker down and heal. I have had to do that a few times in my life When the threat was large and my options limited, absenting myself was often the only healthy solution.

None of this is to say that healthy solutions are easy or don’t generate their own type of pain. Turning your back on unhealed family members, for example, is not without its own hard feelings and complications.

But like the fox who chews off its’ own foot to escape the trap, it is sometimes the difficult choices is the only way out. The fox evaluates its options and makes its decision based on what it can or cannot do. The fox who chooses to accept the trap usually pay with their lives. Many people do the same thing.

So I am in a phase of letting go of some things and feelings I should have let go of years ago. So what? Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

If we believe that each day is a new beginning (and in my world, it is), we can choose to start anew. We can turn our backs on the past and plot a path forward.

It likely won’t be easy, I’ve learned. And it is not a perfect science.

But I’ve also learned that letting go is so worth it.