Letting Go, The Theme of my Life 

from a Mother’s perspective

The message reaches me on an ordinary evening.
A post, shared by a young woman who is very dear to me:
a new mother, her little son just a few months old. 

The post is about letting go.
Through the eyes of a first-time mother. 
That theme follows us mothers through an entire lifetime:
From our child’s very first breath.
With pride. With love. With fear. With blessing. 

As I read the few lines, I feel it:
I know this emotion well. 
I’ve never mastered this motherly letting go perfectly –
none of us probably ever have.

But I have lived it. 
Again, and again. 
New in every phase. 

It begins with the birth itself:
the first letting go, after nine months in which he was completely part of mine.

Then his own little bed.
The first day of preschool.
The first night spent somewhere else. 

Later, the first trip without me.
Adolescence.
Moving out – suddenly, an empty nest.

And at some point, perhaps, another city.
Another country.
A wedding. His own first child. 

A constant back and forth between closeness and distance. 

And through all of this,
that feeling I had no name for, for a long time:

My pride in his growth, his independence, his becoming who he is.
And at the same time, a wistful ache in my chest, my heart.

Like a loss that isn’t really one. 

Years ago, Hannah, my Pilates trainer, taught me a word in German
that captures exactly this: Wohlweh. Literally, “good pain.”

The ache of a deep stretch,
the one you know is doing you good, because it’s opening something.

As I read the post, I understand:
That’s exactly it.
All through my life as a mother, I’ve felt this bittersweet ache,
without ever having a name for it. 

Pride and wistfulness in the same breath. 

Love that stretches,
until it aches a little.

And grows precisely there.

The young woman who sent me this post
is standing at the very beginning of her own path of letting go.

Her little boy is only months old.
She will watch him sleep in his own room,
his first day of preschool,
the first night away from home.

And she will feel this same ache, every time.

I cannot spare her these steps.
No one can.

But I can give her something else:
The knowledge that this ache is not an alarm.
It’s not a sign that something is wrong, or that the bond is breaking. 

It’s Wohlweh. 

There is no exact English word for it.
A bittersweet ache that comes
when love stretches to make room for someone else’s growth. 

The bond between parent and child is allowed to change.
Sometimes closer, sometimes further apart.
It needs attention, openness,
and the willingness to meet each other, again, anew. 

When I look back on my own life as a mother now, 
on every moment in which I had to let go of some piece, 
I see no loss.

I see a spiral that women move through,
each in her own time.

My mother, with me. 
Me, with my son. 
This young woman, with her little boy. 

Always the same movement:
holding on,
walking alongside,
letting go.
And loving.

Perhaps we were never meant to master letting go.
Perhaps we are only meant to live it.
With pride,
with love,
with fear,
with blessing.

And with that bittersweet ache.

Because perhaps this ache in our heart isn’t the opposite of love.
Perhaps it’s the imprint love leaves behind.
The quiet proof that we truly have lived it.

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Dein Takeaway
Perhaps you’re feeling this Wohlweh yourself right now.
In your own story, with your children. Or perhaps with your parents.

If so: it’s not a sign that something is breaking.
It may simply be a sign that love is making room.

---

If letting go is a theme in your life right now –
not only as a mother, but wherever life is asking you to release, trust, or begin again –
you’ll find a gentle space to explore it more deeply in my Letting Go Retreat. (currently, only in German)