Don’t Walk Away and Bring it With You

Sometimes you choose to leave a difficult situation - full of stress, toxic culture, impossible standards - and you accidentally bring some of it with you to your next situation.

You leave the old context to get away from the mess, but the mess is partially inside of you.

It's easy to leave a job and a boss. It's harder to leave behind the way you related to that boss.

It's easy to leave a toxic culture. It takes intentionality to detox from that culture.

It's easy to leave a place that demanded you to work way too much. It's harder to notice how that mentality has shaped your relationship to work.

When you are leaving a bad situation to pursue something better - something that gives you more life, freedom, joy, peace - take the time to assess why you are leaving and what you want to create next.

Slow down before jumping into the next thing.

Be intentional.

You might need to carefully and consciously decide what you are not going to bring with you into the next context. It may take practice, discipline and internal work. Do the difficult work of leaving behind what needs to be left behind.

Otherwise, you might realize - in a year or ten - that you never really got away from the things you were trying to escape.