Raphah: Loosening My Grip in Amsterdam

An experiment in rest, friendship, and learning to let go of what I cannot hold

I am heading to Amsterdam. I’m exhausted, and for once, that might be exactly the point.

I’m not the gentle kind of tired that a good night’s sleep fixes. It’s the kind that sits somewhere deeper. Decision fatigue. Emotional overload. The sense of having held too much, for too long. I will be boarding a plane with three women who have known me since we were young and just beginning to figure out who we were.

We met as young adults in Manchester. We were starting out in our first jobs, all optimism and energy and not nearly enough life experience to know what was coming. Since then, we have collected a lifetime of memories.

There was the time we found ourselves tearing down a mountain river in full wetsuits, gripping what can only be described as a floating sledge, under the questionable guidance of a company called Laax Crap! It was equal parts terrifying and exhilarating. At one point, we were standing on the riverbank with a group of very unfazed Europeans, slowly realising that modesty was, apparently, not part of the plan. There we were, two English girls, rather embarrassed, trying to navigate a full outfit change on what looked like a nudist beach.

Or the European road trip that went spectacularly wrong.

We had just driven over the San Bernardino pass, the kind of scenery that makes you feel like you are in a film, when the car gave up entirely somewhere on the Swiss-Italian border. Armed with my very limited German, I rang the emergency number and confidently announced, “Unser auto ist kaputt.” Confidence far exceeded accuracy.

What followed was a logistical masterpiece of chaos. A hire car. All our camping gear stuffed in. A cross Europe drive. The wrong port. Taxis between terminals. A ferry. An all you can eat smorgasbord eaten while guarding tents and rucksacks and getting many curious looks. Arrival in the UK at the wrong place again. A taxi from Ramsgate to Dover. Another hire car. Finally, home.

At the time, it was madness. Now, it is legend.

These are the women I am going to Amsterdam with.

And this trip feels different.

Because this time, I am arriving not full of energy and expectation, but completely spent.

The last few months have taken more out of me than I realised. I can feel it in the way even small decisions feel heavy. In the way my mind keeps circling things I cannot resolve. In the quiet awareness that I am, quite simply, tired of holding it all together.

So before we go, I did something I do not always do.

I told them.

Not in detail. Not to process it all. Just enough to say, this is where I am at.

And then I made a decision.

On this trip, I am going to let go.

There is a Hebrew word in Psalm 46:10, often translated “be still”. The word is raphah. It means to release, to loosen your grip, to stop striving.

That is what I am practising.

Not switching off. Not pretending everything is fine. But loosening my grip on the need to manage, decide, anticipate, and hold everything together.

Because if I am honest, my brain does not naturally let things go.

It holds on. It replays. It scans for what is unresolved.

The amygdala keeps asking, " Is this safe yet”.

The default mode network keeps looping, have you finished thinking about this.

Even when nothing is happening, something in me is still trying to solve it.

And that is exhausting.

So this trip is a small, deliberate interruption.

I am not planning where we go.
I am not deciding where we eat.
I am not researching the best anything.

I am, quite simply, going to follow.

If they want to wander, we will wander.
If they want to sit in a café for hours, I will sit.
If we get slightly lost along a canal, even better.

This is not my usual mode of operation.

But maybe that is the point.

Because letting go is not passive. It is not giving up. It is choosing, moment by moment, not to tighten your grip again.

Jesus says, do not worry about tomorrow. And I am beginning to realise that worry is not preparation. It is attachment to outcomes I cannot control.

And perhaps more quietly, more gently, there is this invitation.

You do not have to carry this right now.

What makes this possible is not just the decision itself.

It is the people I am with.

These are women who have seen me in all sorts of situations, competent, chaotic, brave, ridiculous, and have stayed. Women, I can laugh with until I cry. Women who remember stories I have forgotten. Women who know how to carry things lightly.

Sometimes letting go is not about having less control.

It is about finally being somewhere you do not need it.

So as you read this, I am somewhere in Amsterdam.

Probably near a canal. Possibly slightly lost. Almost certainly laughing.

And, for once, not in charge.

Maybe stillness is not about stopping.

Maybe it is about finally putting something down.