The “Let It Go” Plate Didn't Heal Me, here's what really helped!
I saw the “let it go” plate trend floating around TikTok and decided to give it a try as a way to close out 2025. The idea is simple: you write everything you don’t want to carry with you into the new year on a ceramic plate, then smash it as a symbolic release.
I loved the concept immediately. Any time I can pair an intense emotion with a physical action, my nervous system responds. Physical coping skills can feel limited or inaccessible at times, but this one felt doable, grounded, and replicable.
All the materials were under five dollars. I picked everything up at the Dollar Tree: a ceramic plate and a sharpie, two plates if 2025 was especially harsh. No special setup. No perfection required.
The entire activity can take anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour, depending on the person. For me, once I started writing, it poured out. The mess in my mind. The losses. Old wounds. Thoughts I had been carrying quietly without ever giving them language. Seeing everything written down gave shape to things that had felt overwhelming and amorphous for a long time.
Before smashing, a practical tip: wrap the plate in a garbage bag to limit cleanup.
The actual smash was… uneventful. It took all of a second. I think it might have felt more meaningful to do this with a friend or partner. There was something strange about smashing the plate alone, throwing the pieces away, and moving on without acknowledgment. The moment was quick and anticlimactic.
And that’s when it became clear: the real release didn’t come from the smash.
It came from the writing.
Putting thoughts, feelings, and experiences into words did far more for my nervous system than breaking the plate ever could. The smashing was symbolic. The writing was the work.
That doesn’t make the activity pointless. In fact, it reinforces something I see often in therapy: we’re often searching for a dramatic moment of relief when what actually helps is slowing down enough to name what we’ve been carrying.
If you’re someone who wants to try this but struggles to know where to start, here are a few reflection prompts that might help guide the writing:
- Something I’m tired of blaming myself for
- A version of myself I don’t need to keep protecting
- A belief that no longer fits who I am
- A loss I haven’t fully named
- A fear that has been running the show
- A pattern I keep repeating even though it hurts
- An expectation I placed on myself that was never fair
- A relationship dynamic I’m ready to lose
- A way I minimized my own needs
- Something I survived that I no longer need to relive
You don’t have to smash a plate for this exercise to be effective. You can write it all down and stop there. You can rip the paper up. You can read it out loud. The power is in giving language to what’s been living quietly inside you.
If you do choose to smash the plate, consider doing it with someone else. Let there be a witness. Let there be acknowledgment. Rituals tend to land more deeply when they’re shared.
This wasn’t about erasing the pain of 2025 or pretending it didn’t matter. It was about recognizing what I no longer want to carry forward.
And that, it turns out, didn’t require a dramatic ending — just honesty, language, and a little space to let things be named.