Letting Go in Our Relationship with Others

There is a first kind of letting go that concerns our relationship with ourselves.

It consists in understanding that we can act on our conditions, our gestures, our rhythms, our choices, our attention, but that we cannot directly command our inner states. We can create the conditions for rest, but we cannot force sleep. We can take care of our body, but we cannot demand an immediate response from it. We can act, but we cannot possess the result.

That is already a form of liberation: no longer confusing acting with controlling.

But there is another kind of letting go, perhaps even more difficult: the one that concerns our relationship with others.

Because in our relationship with others, we are not only confronted with reality. We are confronted with gazes, judgments, interpretations, systems of values, histories that are not our own.

And here again, a distinction becomes necessary.

We can control what we try to express. We can control our effort to be clear, our sincerity, our gentleness, our courage, our intention. But we cannot fully control the way the other person will receive us.

When we speak about others, we always also speak about ourselves#

When we speak about others, we always also speak about ourselves.

This does not mean that everything we say about others is false. It does not mean that every judgment is pure projection. There are sometimes facts, behaviors, words, gestures that can be observed, recognized, discussed.

Someone may have interrupted others. Someone may have been absent. Someone may have taken up a lot of space. Someone may have made a generous gesture. Someone may have spoken with courage.

So there is a referential dimension in what we say about others: we are indeed speaking about something, someone, a behavior, a situation.

But there is always also an expressive dimension.

When I say that someone is courageous, I reveal something about what I admire. When I say that someone is cold, I reveal something about what I expect from human warmth. When I say that someone is arrogant, I reveal something about my relationship to humility, place, legitimacy. When I say that a joke is not funny, I am not only describing the joke: I am also speaking about my humor, my culture, my references, my mood, my sensitivity.

A judgment is never a simple photograph of the other person.

It is always a meeting between what the other person gives us to see and what the person looking is able — or unable — to recognize.

This is why other people’s gaze can inform us, but can never be taken as a pure truth about us. It always contains a part of the other person. Their history. Their tastes. Their wounds. Their expectations. Their fears. Their system of values. Their way of inhabiting the world.

The other person’s gaze is not a neutral mirror#

We often tend to treat other people’s judgment as if it were a mirror.

Someone finds us interesting, so we feel interesting. Someone finds us awkward, so we feel awkward. Someone finds us funny, so we feel funny. Someone does not laugh, so we think we are not funny. Someone does not understand us, so we think we are confused.

But the other person’s gaze is not a neutral mirror.

It never simply reflects what we are. It reflects what we have become inside their world.

And that world is never fully accessible. It is made of references, memories, norms, values, fatigue, context, inner availability. It is made of everything that allows a person, at a given moment, to receive or not receive what we address to them.

This is especially visible with humor.

A joke does not live only inside the person telling it. It lives in a shared space. It depends on shared references, shared culture, minimal trust, rhythm, complicity. We can make three close friends laugh with an almost insignificant sentence, because that sentence awakens an entire shared world. And we can fail to make a whole room laugh with a joke that is nevertheless well built, because the point of contact has not been found.

This is, in fact, a large part of the work of comedians: they are not only looking for the right joke, they are looking for the right way to make that joke exist in the world of the audience.

They test. They move a word. They change the rhythm. They modify the ending. They observe where the room reacts, where it drops off, where it resists.

So it is not that humor is only subjective, as if everything were equal. It is rather that humor is relational. It is born in the space between the person who speaks and those who receive.

And many human things work in the same way.

Clarity. Kindness. Intelligence. Courage. Beauty. Legitimacy. Sincerity.

We can embody them as best we can, but we cannot guarantee that they will be recognized.

Self-assertion is not controlling reception#

This is where the question of self-assertion becomes important.

We often say that someone struggles to assert themselves. But what does that actually mean?

Often, it means that they say or do things that do not really correspond to what they think, feel, or would like to express. They conform to what they believe others expect from them. They try not to disturb, not to displease, not to step outside the frame, not to risk rejection.

But this mechanism contains an additional difficulty: what we believe others expect from us already passes through our own prism.

We do not know exactly what others expect. We imagine it. We anticipate it. We reconstruct it from our fears, from our past experiences, from our desire to be accepted, sometimes from our anxiety.

So we sometimes try to conform not to the true gaze of others, but to the image we have of that gaze.

And that is an almost impossible task.

Because even if we managed to guess what one person expects from us, we would then have to guess what another expects, and another, and another. We would have to become readable, acceptable, pleasant, funny, intelligent, reassuring, interesting for different inner worlds, sometimes contradictory ones.

We cannot build our existence on such a fragile operation.

Self-assertion, then, is not about successfully producing a positive reaction in others.

Self-assertion is not being certain we will be understood. It is not being certain we will be loved. It is not being certain we will be validated. It is not being certain we will make others laugh. It is not being certain we will be received exactly as we would like to be.

Self-assertion is being able to remain faithful to what we want to say, do, or embody, while accepting that reception does not entirely belong to us.

It is a very simple, but very deep form of courage: accepting to be visible without any guarantee of being perfectly received.

Criticism as information about a meeting#

This distinction also changes the way we receive criticism.

When we share a joke, an opinion, an idea, a way of seeing things, we tend to receive other people’s reactions as a direct judgment on our person.

Nobody laughs, therefore I am not funny. Someone contradicts my idea, therefore I am stupid. Someone does not understand what I am saying, therefore I am confused. A group rejects my proposal, therefore I do not belong.

But this shortcut is often too violent, and above all too imprecise.

It confuses our being with what we expressed. And it confuses what we expressed with the way this expression was received in a particular context.

A reaction is not always a verdict on the self. It can be information about the meeting between an expression and a public.

If a joke does not work, it does not necessarily mean: I am not funny. It can mean: this joke, formulated in this way, at this moment, in front of these people, did not meet their world.

If an opinion is rejected, it does not necessarily mean: I am illegitimate. It can mean: this idea, with these words, in this context, is in tension with the values, references, interests, or sensitivities of this group.

If a statement is not understood, it does not necessarily mean: I think badly. It can mean: the path between my inner world and the world of others has not yet been sufficiently built.

This does not mean that criticism does not matter. On the contrary, it may become more useful once it stops being received as a total wound.

It becomes relational data.

Not cold, neutral, objective data. But situated data: this is how this speech was received by these people, in this context, at this moment.

And this data can teach us something.

It can teach us that our formulation lacks clarity. It can teach us that our example does not speak to this audience. It can teach us that our humor assumes a complicity that does not yet exist. It can teach us that our opinion touches a sensitive point. It can teach us that we were more abrupt than we thought. It can also teach us that this is not the right audience, or that some people cannot receive what we are trying to express.

In every case, it allows us to shift the question.

Instead of immediately asking: what does this reaction say about my value?

We can ask: what does this reaction say about the meeting between what I expressed and the world of those who received it?

This shift is precious, because it allows us to remain open to feedback without dissolving into it.

It allows us to listen without collapsing. To adjust without betraying ourselves. To recognize a clumsiness without turning that clumsiness into an identity. To understand that a statement can fail locally without the person speaking being condemned globally.

This is exactly what a comedian does when testing a joke. They do not immediately conclude, at every silence, that they have no talent. They observe. They move things around. They refine. They understand that the effect produced depends on a form, a rhythm, an audience, a moment.

We can learn something from that attitude.

Our words are not only true or false inside our head. They must find a form in order to exist in a shared world.

And other people’s reactions help us understand that existence: not our personal value, but the social trajectory of what we have sent into the world.

Wanting to be loved is human; wanting to control love is not#

This is not about becoming indifferent to others.

That would be a false kind of freedom. A hardness disguised as wisdom.

We need to be recognized. We need to be understood. We need to be loved. We need to feel that our presence can find a place in the world of others.

All of that is human.

The problem does not come from the desire to be welcomed. It comes from the moment when we make our right to exist depend on that welcome.

There is an immense difference between wanting to be loved and wanting to control love. Between wanting to be understood and wanting to control understanding. Between wanting to be recognized and wanting to control the gaze that recognizes us.

In the first case, we remain in relationship. In the second, we try to possess what, by nature, does not belong to us.

Because the other person is not only the recipient of our speech. They are a world. And that world has its own logic.

We can address them sincerely. We can make the effort to be clear. We can listen to what they answer. We can adjust. We can learn to better meet their language, their references, their sensitivity.

But we cannot enter their system of values in their place. We cannot decide for them what they will find right, beautiful, funny, courageous, awkward, or lovable.

That is where relational letting go begins.

Not in abandoning the other. Not in despising the gaze of others. Not in the idea that everything is equal and no one can tell us anything.

But in this simple recognition:

I can take care of what I send into the world. I cannot possess what the world will do with it.

Looking for the universal within what is situated#

There is something paradoxical in this reflection.

On one side, we say that everyone speaks from their own point of view. That every judgment is situated. That no one looks from nowhere. That every gaze upon another person contains a part of the self.

And on the other side, we are still looking for a general truth about human relationships.

But perhaps this is not a contradiction.

The universal truth is not that we all see the same thing. The universal truth is that we all see from somewhere.

That, perhaps, is the common structure.

We are all situated. We all speak from a history. We all judge from a system of values. We all receive others through a prism. And others receive us through theirs as well.

What is universal, then, is not perfect objectivity. It is the human condition of looking: no one sees without being someone.

This does not destroy truth. It makes it more humble.

There can be truth in what another person says about me. They can reveal something I had not seen. They can help me correct myself, grow, better understand the effect I produce.

But their judgment is never a pure truth fallen from the sky. It is a situated word. It deserves to be heard, but not worshipped. It can be welcomed, but not confused with my entire being.

Letting go as a condition for relationship#

Letting go in our relationship with others does not mean withdrawing.

It is not about saying: since I do not control reception, I no longer have to pay attention. Since everyone speaks through their own prism, all judgments are equal. Since I cannot guarantee that I will be understood, I can give up on being clear.

That would be an escape.

True letting go does not reduce our responsibility. It clarifies it.

I am responsible for what I say, not for everything the other person hears. I am responsible for my intention, not for every possible interpretation. I am responsible for my effort to be clear, not for the inner availability of the person receiving me. I am responsible for the way I am present, not for the inner world in which that presence will resonate.

This distinction is liberating, because it allows us to keep acting without trying to possess everything.

It allows us to speak without demanding to be perfectly understood. To love without demanding to be loved in exactly the same way. To offer without demanding that the other person receive. To show ourselves without demanding that the gaze always be gentle. To assert ourselves without making external validation the condition of our existence.

In our relationship with ourselves, letting go means acting without trying to possess the result.

In our relationship with others, it means expressing ourselves without trying to possess the reception.

Accepting to be visible#

Perhaps, at the bottom of the difficulty of self-assertion, there is a great fear: the fear of being visible.

As long as we adapt, as long as we guess, as long as we try to correspond to what we believe others expect, we remain partly hidden. We do not yet fully risk rejection, because we have not yet fully shown ourselves.

Self-assertion, on the contrary, means accepting that a part of us becomes visible.

Not our entire person. Not a definitive truth about ourselves. But something: a word, a preference, a limit, an idea, a desire, a way of laughing, a way of seeing.

And as soon as something becomes visible, it can be received in several ways.

Some will recognize it. Some will not understand. Some will love it. Some will remain indifferent. Some will judge. Some will miss it. Some will even see in us something we had not seen.

There is an unavoidable vulnerability in being present in the world.

But the opposite is not safety. The opposite is erasure.

And perhaps this is what we must gently learn to leave behind: the idea that, in order to be safe, we would have to be perfectly adjusted to the gaze of others.

We never will be.

We can be sincere. We can be attentive. We can be delicate. We can learn. We can choose the people with whom our inner world has a greater chance of being welcomed.

But we cannot turn every gaze into a safe place.

So relational letting go becomes a way of returning to our rightful place.

Neither all-powerful, nor powerless.

I do not control the gaze of the other. But I can choose what I want to embody. I do not control reception. But I can take care of my expression. I do not control love. But I can be true in the way I enter relationship.

And perhaps this is what it means to assert oneself: to stop waiting for the world to guarantee that we have the right to appear.

To appear anyway.

With attention. With gentleness. With courage.

Without trying to possess what others will do with us.