What are you ready to release?

As we grow through life, there is a time to build and a time to release.

Build up your career through schooling, through focus, through super hard work. Then evaluate and release what no longer works.

Build up your home through saving, visioning, hunting. Then evaluate and release what no longer serves you.

Build up your friendships through the years of school, early career, expending family, volunteer involvement, children. Then release those who no longer spark a light in you.

Build up beliefs, perhaps based on family of origin or the rejection of family of origin. Then reconsider and release those that no longer fit what you know now.

Build, then release. It is a normal, regenerative cycle that creates room for new purpose, new friendships, new possessions, new understandings about the world. And it takes thought, consideration and intention.

For many people, it is easier to build, then it is to evaluate what is no longer serving us and to release. When we stop to notice, we may realize that we've been building for a long time and have forgotten that it is also just as important to release.

How to approach it without having to stop the world?

Here are three steps to consider.

Stop long enough to consider what is calling to be released. Those itchy feelings of overwhelm, discomfort and conflict are serving a purpose - they are there to push you towards releasing that which no longer serves you. Pay attention. Start to note if walking through the doors (even virtually) at work makes your stomach churn, if signing off on notes that you don't agree with makes your heart ache, if the chaos in your home makes you want to retreat into a small corner. Simply notice without judgment.

Own it. This is your life. Just because your mom wanted you to have the big five bedroom house in the suburbs doesn't mean it's right for you at this point in your life. Notice and consider - what will make your spirit soar? Just because you've been a doctor for most of your adult life doesn't mean that is all you are, that you are limited to that. Take the space to think, who else are you? Just because your family was financially conservative doesn't mean you can't have the time of your life investing your hard-earned financial resources back into the community you love. What are you capable of growing and for whom? This is your life. Take off the limits, release your scarcity thinking and expand your concept of what is possible.

Consider baby steps. Building takes time. Releasing takes time, too. Start with baby steps... in physical space it might be one small drawer. Decide what to keep and what to release. Metaphorically it works the same way - notice when that old college friend calls - does it spark joy? Or dread? What one task will you consider releasing at work so that you have room to think bigger? Which one hour will you dedicate each week for creating spaciousness and possibility in your thinking?

Notice how that feels... spacious, freeing, a bit scary? Stepping into something new can feel a bit scary and often that's a good thing.

Actions, aligned with values, support optimal health.