“All great spirituality teaches about letting go of what you don’t need and who you are not.”
— Richard Rohr · 1943 –Source: Healing Our Violence Through the Journey of Centering Prayer · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The wording is reliably attributed to Richard Rohr and is connected to his book Healing Our Violence Through the Journey of Centering Prayer.
- What remains uncertain
- Attribution is verified, though exact punctuation and formatting vary across secondary sources and a precise page citation is not established here.
Understanding the quote
Rohr’s line captures a core of Christian contemplative practice: inner freedom grows when you let go of identities and needs that bind you. It appears in his teaching, most likely in Healing Our Violence Through the Journey of Centering Prayer, which explores centering prayer and detachment.
The story behind it
Richard Rohr, born in 1943, is a Franciscan friar who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, a major hub for his teachings.
Going further
- The era
- Late 20th–early 21st century, when centering prayer and contemporary contemplative theology reached wide audiences.
- The thinking
- A Christian contemplative approach that teaches letting go of ego-driven aims; in daily life it means practicing silence, humility, and releasing control.
- Key word
- Detachment as freedom: releasing ego, status, and control to live from an inner core.
- Who quoted it
- The sentence has been widely reproduced across quotation sites and in contemporary devotional writing.
Three challenges to live it
In the app, you pick the one that fits your day, and in the evening you say how it went.
Sit quietly for 10 minutes and focus on feeling 'small': with each exhale, let go of one mental image, role, or possession you cling to.
Rohr emphasizes shrinking the ego to find freedom; this short pause trains you to release identities by observing what remains when you let things go.
Write for 12 minutes a list of roles, objects, or beliefs you could let go of; then cross out half the list and describe what remains.
Listing then reducing enacts Rohr's idea: identify the unnecessary and experience the sufficiency of the core that remains, practicing release on paper.
Call or meet someone and share, in five sentences, one thing you've chosen to let go of and what that brought you, without asking for advice.
Rohr says freedom lets us connect without eliminating others; sharing a small vulnerability without seeking solutions practices authentic connection and reduces defensiveness.
How might releasing a self-image free you to act differently today?
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