This line — ‘What would you like to leave behind you now?’ — was in a song sung by the wonderful London Vocal Project at Pizza Express Live in Soho last night. It was a beautiful song (in a fabulous gig) that captured the essence of what has been on my mind of late.
In the last week, in individual coaching sessions, I have started helping clients reflect on the year they have just lived. I have started to do the same thing myself. Personally I can’t work out whether January 2021 feels like yesterday or a decade ago — but maybe that’s a post I will write another time on what the pandemic has done to our sense of time. In any event, the process of revisiting the year and retracing our footsteps through the seasons, following the ups and downs and all the bits in between, has been poignant for many. Sometimes I have asked people to create a headline that summarises the essence of the year they have had. That has often been very telling (why don’t you try it?). Without doubt, it has been a tough one for a lot of people, and while it has certainly not been without its fruits and rewards, it has taken its toll for sure.
My training in Systemic work taught me a lot about the importance of ‘good endings’ in relationships, be that a relationship with an individual, an organisation or indeed the second year of a pandemic. Systems theory teaches us to ‘take the good things with us and leave the rest behind’, not in a ‘f#!k you’ sort of way (however tempting, sometimes) but in a genuinely respectful and assertive manner. So I have been inviting my clients to do the same thing by signalling what they would like to carry over into 2022 and also what they would like to let go of, helping them visualise it drifting off on a river current moving away from them with increasing speed towards the ocean. There is something very powerful about letting go of something (or someone) that no longer nourishes you and creating space for something new to come in. But it can be incredibly difficult, especially when we don’t know what is going to come next or when. And so we can find ourselves holding onto relationships with people, organisations and experiences that at best we have outgrown and that at worst, undermine or damage us, because of our fear of what will come next.
These thoughts came back to me as I watched Strictly Come Dancing this weekend. In it Rose Ayling-Ellis, a delightful young actress and now beautiful dancer who is the programme’s first ever deaf contestant, did the most astonishing lift. This involved literally launching herself into the air, arms outstretched towards her dance partner, Giovanni, her entire body stretching towards him. As one of the judges pointed out after the performance, there was a moment during which she was literally in thin air, with neither her feet on the floor nor her hands in Giovanni’s. It was astonishing to watch as part of the dance and part of her dancing journey in the competition. But it also caught my attention as the most powerful symbol of what it means to let go and what it requires of us.
I can think of a few times when I have done it in my life. The greatest example in my professional life was when I resigned from the consulting firm where I had worked for ten years, to set up my own business. I had not lined things up. I did not know what would happen next. I knew I needed to leave. I had wishes, dreams and intentions but no clarity and definitely no certainty. I remember that time vividly. It was exciting and terrifying in equal measure. I am not sure how long I was in the ‘arms outstretched with my feet off the floor’ position but I know it was a matter of months, not days or weeks and that it was very stressful! I also know that it was one of the best decisions I ever made and one of the greatest learning experiences of my adult life! I did not have a track record of trusting myself or life! Believe me, I had to learn pretty quickly.
On a much smaller scale, I did it again earlier this year when I decided to step away from an Associate relationship with a company I had worked with for eight years. I knew I had outgrown it and that I needed to leave, but there was also anxiety about whether I would manage to ‘make it’ on my own. I did not yet know what would fill the space, nor how long the space would remain. My mind could find lots of reasons why it was a better idea to stay put in my (not very comfortable) comfort zone. Ten months later, I can see that so much new, fresh, creative energy has come into that space which I am absolutely loving. I am so thankful for my own courage! It has not always been this way though: I have stayed too long in relationships (personal and professional) many times before and know how costly this can be, on many levels. Having the courage and the trust to choose something different, even when you don’t know what that something is or when or how it will emerge, is so hard but so, so worth it. Sometimes you just have to be like Rose and take that leap.
Andre Gide apparently said: “One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a long time”.
Personally, I think he’s right and so I ask you: What will you leave behind you now? And what will you take with you into 2022?