Letting Go to Keep Growing

Image description: Sun shining on flowers going to seed in autumn

by Peter Simon

I sat there at my desk with flushed cheeks and my mind in a panic. I couldn’t grasp any logical thought amidst the many racing messages of failure that were filling my head. Even my hand, which had been holding a pen in it prior to and during the conversation, seemed to be less confident in its ability to hold it upright. Worse, I had to somehow manage to hold back my tears in an office full of people that had surely overheard everything. There was no other place that I wished to be than alone.

I found myself fixated on replaying a small part of the conversation in my head over and over,

“I’m going to need you to stop…” 

Where do I go from here?

How did I still have six hours left in the day?

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I still can feel this day, heavy in my mind many months later.

In fact, putting it into words created a very similar reaction within me, with my hands beginning to sweat and my body having a quick flash of warmth spreading out from my chest. With every other blink, I seemed to go between sitting at my desk at home and at my old job. Isn’t it funny to have such an intense bodily reaction many months later?

I recently wrote a blog post introducing the idea of adopting a growth mindset, briefly covering the many aspects of what it was and how it looked in my life. I feel like I talked about growing from feedback but not necessarily what to do with it afterwards. 

Sometimes you grow from it, but then there seems to be some piece left over and sticking with you-- as though you had just finished walking through a field and had those prickly little thorns stuck to your shoelaces. For me, that includes the emotions that come with receiving feedback. 

Why was I feeling like that? How did I process those emotions? Did I?

The topic of letting go is complicated. There seem to be many aspects of what it is and what it can look like. When I do a quick Google search, almost all of the results revolve around letting go after a relationship, but not so much our emotions.

My hope in opening up a conversation about our emotional responses to feedback is that we can begin to be more honest with ourselves, identify what we need, and then do something with that knowledge. Too often I feel like we don’t allow ourselves to address and accept the emotions we had in response to a moment, whether feedback or not. 

I also want to say that I think it’s okay to not be able to grow fully from a moment while in the midst of it, that processing it to where you need it to be to get through it is more than okay. I hope that if you notice it beginning to affect your life afterwards, whether soon after or years after, that you recognize it and begin to brainstorm what will work for you to grow and learn from it.

When I reflect on the moment I highlighted above, I felt frustrated, sad, embarrassed, defeated, sensitive, terrible, and incapable. Emotions I can still feel lingering even now. I was surprised while writing to find  that I still felt such an intense reaction because I thought I had worked through it but really, I think I just processed it enough to where I was able to survive the rest of my time there. Had I begun to work through my emotions, that may have tipped me over the edge and would’ve been more than I could’ve handled at that point in time. 

So now I sit here writing and wondering what do I do now? How can I honor myself in acknowledging that this was an emotional moment for me and that I was also able to get through it? 

Sometimes time can help us all slowly forget details. Or sometimes just allowing ourselves to feel those emotions without restraint can be helpful too. The beautiful thing about all of us is that we so uniquely process emotions in our own ways, we just need to give us the time and allowance to do so.

Writing as an occupation of letting go

 Recently, I have begun writing down previous situations that I still feel impacting my daily life, such as the story above, in an attempt to help me finish with my processing and just get them out into the world. I see this as a time when those moments and emotions are no longer just mine, living only in my head. 

And sometimes that works well for me, sometimes it just doesn’t.

I am currently in the process of both making peace with that and remembering to find the next step after that initial “failure”. 

That to me is a crucial part of the growth mindset when letting go.

Processing out loud with a trusted colleague the impact of emotions on occupations

When I was talking with my colleague Emily and asking for feedback on this post, she mentioned that it can be so difficult to talk about our emotions because people don’t always see them as the dynamic, everchanging presence that they are in our lives. When we see emotions as changing, that is us admitting that we will never be able to have a full grasp on them.

However, when we see emotions as more of a concrete and tangible idea, then it is easier for us to be there for ourselves or others when we know what to expect. It feels much safer to just say I’ll get over this feedback eventually and try not to see how it is slowly impacting various parts of my life.

I didn’t realize just how much I changed who I was after that moment until Emily challenged me to think of how much emotions could have impacted my occupation of work, my occupation of social connection with coworkers and clients, how I viewed myself, and my roles.

It wasn’t until months later that I realized everything I did was immediately influenced by that moment. It was more than just receiving the feedback-- it was the emotional tie that I instantly created to that moment. 

Reflecting on the impact of emotions on occupations

I wrote a reminder on all my client notes for the remaining weeks. I stopped telling personal stories for a while to coworkers. I flinched every time someone called my name to talk. I didn’t ask as many questions. I started to sweat before every session with clients.

How do our emotions influence our actions? What do they tell us about the world around us, about how safe we feel?

A wish for all of us

I hope that you can continue to be curious about your emotions and not lose that curiosity. You are allowed to be frustrated. You are allowed to be sad. You are allowed to feel angry. Your emotions are valid in the midst of both receiving feedback and letting go. 

But don’t lose sight of your hopes, of your growth.

In our curiosity, we can try new things, old things, suggestions from friends, suggestions from family.

Actions for consideration

What would being honest to yourself about how a situation made you feel look like? 

Would saying out loud that “I feel anxious” or “I am frustrated” help you?

Can you write down what exactly made you feel the way you did after feedback?

I encourage you to try things and don’t stop trying until you find what helps you let go of your emotions. If you look something up, listen to an audiobook, or get ideas from friends and they don’t work, don’t let that stop you from trying, as frustrating as that may be. Instead look at it as not only are you trying to find what works best for you, but you have already discovered the things that don’t and can spend more time and energy on other things.

Remember to be kind to yourself, trying is still growing.