Dropping the Rope: A Personal Encounter With Letting Go
The first time I truly understood the Drop the Rope metaphor wasn’t while reading about it or practicing it with a client, it was while watching Steven Hayes use it in a training video.
There was a woman sitting across from him, holding a rope, pulling with all her strength while an imagined “monster” tugged from the other end. The struggle was so human it felt familiar in my chest before I even consciously understood why. She pulled harder. The monster pulled harder. And Steve, in that way he seems uniquely able to do, became the voice of her mind—persistent, automatic, believable. Watching that unfold was mind-blowing. Not because it was clever, but because it was recognizable. It was me. It was all of us.
That moment stuck.
For weeks afterward, whenever I found myself wrestling with a difficult thought:
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