The Journey of Letting Go – My Story So Far

Well, where to start on this one?! Letting go for me has really been a test of time and patience. I’ve realised that I am not the type of person who can acknowledge what I need to let go of straight away and then simply just say “ok, great I’ve released that now let’s move on”. It’s not as straightforward as that. It takes me time, it can be complex, and it certainly has ups and downs.

The journey of letting go for me is about releasing what I like to call – gifts. More specifically gifts around my attitude to work.

I like to call them gifts because they are traits, behaviours or habits that I have been gifted either from my family, friends, colleagues or the workplace culture in general. Gifts that have been given to me right from birth all the way up to now. And they ARE gifts, because when you receive a gift, you do have the choice weather or not to accept it. We might not feel that way in the moment (our British politeness might take over) … but we really don’t have to accept every gift we’ve been given.

That’s why I like to think of these behaviours, habits and traits as gifts I’ve been given. The intent was good, and they may have served me at some point in my life, but they are not gifts I need now so I can let them go.

For me leaving the corporate world 18 months ago left me figuring out how I navigate the self-employed world but as a (now) ex-corporate girly. There are behaviours we are taught to have in the corporate environment – some positive gifts and some negative gifts- and I was left to determine which ones served me in my new life and which ones didn’t.

Obviously at the time I didn’t necessarily realise that some of the corporate traits were good or bad. I was aware of the really bad ones …. like conflict, comparison, competition. But I have lately realised that there were other “gifts” given from the corporate workplace and even from my family (all business owners) that I believed to be good BUT actually don’t serve me in my new life. Gifts such as presenteeism, perfectionism, being a ‘YES’ girl, urgency, control, process.

After 18 months of living the self-employed life, I have only now realised that some of these gifts – even though good at the time and served me incredibly well to succeed in my corporate career- were no longer behaviours that I needed to succeed in my new life.

Side note- remembering that for me the definition of success has now changed too. I talked about that in a previous blog https://www.flowingflamingo.com/post/finding-my-own-freedom.

Instead in my new life the gifts I want to carry forward from the corporate world and my family are things like – consistency, professionalism, creativity, knowledge, organisation, responsiveness and there are many others too. But I also want to introduce flexibility, ease, grace … the idea that I no longer need to hustle, rush and be busy all the time. That for me is not success and does not serve my business.

Now my friends, this process has taken me 18 months. So, when I say the journey of letting go is a journey, I mean it!!

For a while I ploughed on, but something didn’t feel quite right. I still didn’t feel as aligned to my true self as I wanted to feel, some days anxiety was still rampant. I chatted to friends, meditated …. all the good stuff and eventually the realisation hit me (whilst I was driving- which is always when I get my little epiphany moments) …. I needed to let go of my work gifts.

I don’t want you to think that I was working on letting go for the entire 18 months…. honestly, I didn’t really realise I needed to let something go until a couple of months ago, but that’s why in class I refer to the fact that we work with our intuition. Our intuition knows (like mine did, telling me something wasn’t quite right yet) and it took months to get to the ah-ha moment.

So, no pressure, friends!!

Now I know what it is I need to release, I can begin. My friends and I hosted a releasing ceremony last week which was amazing – I cried! – we took something that signified what we needed to let go of and burned it. I had an old document from my previous career, and it felt so freeing to finally let it go. I know longer need it…

So now the next step begins. Living in the realisation of these gifts, gifts I’ve begun to let go, but probably won’t go easily.

So, I give myself grace

Love, Tash xx