Eat, pray, leave: Why leaving isn't the power move you think it is

I’ve left a lot of things in the name of “saving myself”: jobs, partnerships, friendships. I’ve made a show out of leaving old apartments for bigger spaces, and had dramatic and painful conversations cutting off friends who held me back. Part of me still wants to leave the country to escape the uncomfortable conversations that are happening in our political landscape.

And in all of these I’ve felt like the hero – the warrior cutting off the head of the dragon and lugging it forward as proof that I’m strong.

But in reality, I was the woman fleeing something that felt too big to face. Boarding a plane to anywhere but here so that I wouldn’t need to sit with the discomfort of my own choices.

Here’s the thing: that’s not freedom.

That’s avoidance.

Why Not Just Leave?

When you simply leave the job you hate or the boss who doesn’t respect you or the corporate culture that’s crushing your body, you haven’t conquered it. When you kick a partner out of the house for betraying you or gaslighting you or growing apathetic, that is not in itself winning.

I don’t mean to minimize these things – saying “I don’t choose this for myself anymore” is powerful.

But it’s not enough.

That’s why we so easily end up in the same situations over again – leaving one miserable job only to end up at another. Leaving one emotionally unavailable partner only to fall for another.

And the worst part is, now you have to muster the courage to leave again, and face the realization that you just chose the same thing you left in the first place.

Why?

Because throwing our hands up and walking away bypasses the discomfort, and the discomfort is an alarm that we have room to grow.

That there’s something important here worth exploring.

What The Desire to Run Reveals

For me, discomfort has shown me where I needed to stand up for myself; where I needed to be more vulnerable expressing how I feel; and where I needed to listen to my intuition over what other people wanted from me.

Leaving the situation without facing those conversations with myself was a disservice. And I ended up in situations where I just had to look those uncomfortable truths in the eyes again and again.

This is how I went from a corporate employee who hated meetings to an entrepreneur who hated meetings – I didn’t want to look at the underlying problem and actually change it. (Fortunately, having no one else to blame puts things in sharp perspective. Now my meetings are fire.)

Why We Leave

Our culture glorifies women having leaving power: slamming the resignation letter on the desk, throwing the man’s clothes out of the second-floor window, cutting off family members in the name of our sanity.

Guess what: it’s a ploy to isolate us and make us weaker. It convinces us that anything that disturbs our peace is evil. And while some situations certainly are dangerous to our physical, mental, and emotional health, framing the answer as simply a matter of removing the negative catalyst doesn’t address the root cause, which is this:

The call is coming from inside the house.

We’re all magnets attracting the people, places, and experiences meant to mirror our internal world for the purpose of helping us grow. But especially women – our magnetism is more powerful than we realize. So leaving a hurtful situation without evaluating and reorienting the magnet is only going to create a stronger pull to what it is we’re running from.

It doesn’t help that most of us have been raised glorifying independence and self-reliance: “I don’t need anyone’s help. I can and should be able to do it all. If I heal myself enough it’ll get better.” It divorces us from the reality that we are the most well when in community with others.

Constantly leaving communities and relationships that have provided security (even if they’re problematic) is destabilizing to our nervous system. When we get ourselves into the pattern of having to leave, uproot our life, and essentially “start over” every time something needs to end, it’s hard on our bodies and our hearts.

You end up asking the question I have been asking myself lately: Why does it have to hurt so much every time I grow, every time I take a step?

What if it doesn’t have to be that way?

If Not Leaving, Then What?

When a tree’s fruit ripens, sweetens, then starts to rot, the tree doesn’t pull up its roots and go somewhere else to grow more fruit. It lets the rotting fruit fall to the ground and fertilize the soil in which it’s already growing.

This is how I like to picture the things in my life that I am outgrowing, that have served their purpose, or that no longer bring me joy. It doesn’t have to be a dramatic ending. I don’t always need to be the one sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night with my go-bag and passport and night-vision goggles.

(Seriously, sometimes I can be so dramatic about my endings.)

Instead of leaving, I propose “releasing.”

How to Practice Releasing

When you look at something and think, “I can’t possibly tolerate this any longer,” sit with that. Wonder about it, not from a crime-solving analytical perspective, but from a feeling perspective. What exactly is unbearable – is it how other people are behaving, or how you are forcing yourself to show up, or how it feels to be with a certain place or person? What is familiar about these feelings? Where and when have you felt them before?

Instead of resisting the discomfort or numbing yourself to it, really lean your body into it. As if this is the last taste you’ll have of this situation before moving on to a better one. What lessons is it teaching you about what you actually want to choose next?

Write those down. Write a list of what doesn’t work anymore, and a list of what the alternative looks like. So that when you encounter both (and you will), you’ll be able to recognize them and make a conscious choice.

Then watch what you are wanting to release leave your space - like they’re walking out of your front door or disappearing into the horizon. Easily, without you needing to push or resist. You can even imagine erasing the path they take so it can’t lead them back to you.

You don’t need leaving power when you have staying power – you get to stay, and what doesn’t feed you simply falls away.

The Difference You’ll Feel

Releasing is gentler than leaving. It takes less muscle and effort. You get to stay grounded and supported. When you master it, you get to observe the things in your life approach their end and slowly pass on to somewhere else.

I don’t mean that it’s easy, or that you won’t have feelings about it. I also don’t want to give the impression that you must become passive, or that it still doesn’t take choice and intention on our part – it does.

But it should feel like the ending of a good movie, where there is hope and direction. Not the middle of the movie where there’s turmoil and upheaval.

When you replace the need to leave with permission to release, the power you feel is quieter. It’s more subtle. But it’s yours.

And you don’t need to wield it like a weapon.

You simply wear it: like a crown.