Workshop Overview

This live online workshop explores the psychology of letting go: why the mind clings to what is over, what that clinging quietly costs you, and how to finally put the weight down.

Some people live with a clenched fist. The ending they never accepted. The grudge they cannot release. The person who never apologised. The version of themselves they were supposed to become. None of it is present in the room, yet all of it is present in the body.

Psychology has a name for part of this: the Zeigarnik effect, the mind’s tendency to keep unfinished business open and running in the background, replaying it long after the moment has passed. Neuroscience adds the rest: held resentment keeps the stress response switched on, taxing sleep, mood, immunity and attention. And the oldest contemplative traditions arrived at the same diagnosis centuries earlier; Patanjali called the remedy vairagya, the practised art of non-clinging.

In this session, Dr Krishna Athal brings the science and the ancient practice together and turns both into something you can actually do: a four-move framework called the Open Hand Method, for releasing what your life has already finished with.

“Letting go is not forgetting, excusing, or losing. It is refusing to keep paying the carrying cost on something that is already over.”

What You Will Learn

By the end of the session, participants will be able to:

Identify their personal carrying cost: where held endings, grudges and old identities are quietly draining energy, sleep and attention.
Understand why the brain clings, through the Zeigarnik effect, sunk-cost bias, and the neuroscience of resentment and rumination.
Distinguish letting go from its impostors: suppressing, forgetting, excusing, and pretending it never mattered.
Release a grudge without needing an apology, using forgiveness research that treats forgiveness as cancelling a debt, not approving the offence.
Close an ending properly, so it stops occupying the present, drawing on the psychology of unfinished business.
Practise the four moves of the Open Hand Method live, and leave with one grounded daily practice that blends nervous-system science and yogic non-clinging.

How the Session Flows

The workshop opens with the moment of recognition: the weight you did not realise you were still carrying. It then moves through the psychology of clinging, teaches and practises the four moves of the Open Hand Method with guided reflection, addresses the special case of grudges and forgiveness, and closes with a short release practice and one personal commitment for the week ahead, followed by live Q&A.

Who Should Attend

Professionals, leaders, coaches, students, and anyone holding on to an ending, a grudge, a loss, or an old version of themselves, and who is ready to travel lighter. No prior knowledge of psychology or yoga is required.

About the Facilitator

Dr Krishna Athal is an award-winning Life and Executive Coach and Amazon bestselling author, working across India, Mauritius, and Singapore at the intersection of leadership, psychology, neuroscience, and human behaviour. He was named Best Executive Coach in Asia 2026 by Asia Business Outlook.

letting go

The Psychology of Letting Go: Endings, Grudges, and the Weight You Still Carry