Loving Through Leaving and Getting Over the Guilt of Owning What You Want

As the last few days at my law office slip through my fingers as easily as the falling leaves, I am struck by how everything is both slow and fast.

This year has been a long series of letting goes. Mostly, my letting go has been of invisible things like internal beliefs, inter-generational patterns and relationship dynamics that no longer serve me. These inner releases have made available increasing space within me for my vision for my ideal work and my ideal home to root down and stabilize, which in turn, has made possible some significant visible external releases: of my law practice, my law family, a regular paycheck, and the stability of my home.

There have been so many times this year when I have wanted nothing more than to be further ahead; past this time of grief and fear and healing, and onto the part where I am free, lit up from the inside and getting paid well to do work that makes my Soul sing.

At the same time this year has gone by much too fast, and I have found myself trying to cram into these last few weeks: just one more project at work; one more research deep dive; one more exciting strategy session; one more carefully worded letter; one more intense debate.  I have indeed had one more of each of those, and then just one more again.

I have loved each moment at my law firm to the fullest these past months, through the heartbreak and the quiet certainty that the time for me to go was ever nearing. For this, I am proud. Normally, to leave something, I first find a problem with it; I make it wrong, exhausting and detrimental to my health, to the point where it is not up to “me”, I simply must go, and quickly, to preserve my health. That way, you see, I did not have to be responsible for the impact of my leaving, on me or anyone else.

I “have” to is language used by someone who is afraid to own and take responsibility for what they want. I have a lot of familiarity with this way of choosing, but it is no longer who I am or the way I live my life.

I choose to leave my law firm because I want to.

I choose to leave my law firm despite that I enjoy practicing law, and I love the people I practice law with as if they were family. 

I choose to leave knowing there are consequences of doing so, both to myself and to others. I choose to leave and I choose the consequences of that choice.

I choose to leave my law firm despite that leaving would, and is, breaking my heart.

I choose to leave my law firm because I want to follow the calling in my Soul to create a business from my art.

I choose to leave my law firm because I want to. Simple as that.

Not too long go, writing that sentence would have evoked in me a significant amount of guilt.

Why would you leave something that is good? Many people have asked me variations of this question. What most people mean when they ask me this is how can you possibly leave something that you enjoy that is safe?

If you have a secure job that you enjoy, and you get to work with people you love, how could you possibly want to leave? How entitled are you? How selfish can you be? How childish are you to follow your crazy unconventional ideas that offer no promise of reward or success? You need to grow up! Be reasonable! How will you make any money? How will you survive?

Can you hear the judgment in these questions? Entitled. Selfish. Childish. Stupid. Crazy. Judgments that cut like a knife.

I have been on the receiving end of these judgment laden questions many times, both from others, and from the voice of our culture internalized in my own mind.

Coming to understand and accept that these voices are not mine, and learning to instead distinguish, listen to, and trust the deeper voice of truth that flows from my Soul, as the only guiding voice in my life, has been (and is) my journey.

The stories of scarcity (i.e. you’ll never make money) and selfishness (i.e. you should be happy with what you have) are tactics used by our culture to keep us conformed to certain lifestyles and paths. Do you think large corporations, systems and institutions could profit if every one of us was soul-guided, self-sufficient (within the web of our communities), and liberated to live life fully on our own terms as is our divine right?

The truth is, they could not.

If we are not afraid or ashamed to be all of who we are, we cannot be convinced we need products, relationships and life paths that give us the illusion of being someone we are not.

If we own who we are, we will consume products, participate in relationships and choose life paths only if they are in alignment with our deepest truth.

Were each of us connected in and empowered to live a Soul-Led life, all that is false in the world would fall away.  All that would be left is the Truth.

The Truth of who we are. The Truth of our Divinity. The Truth of our connection to all Life and our desire to be in service to it.

This is why I do this work of reconnecting with my deepest truth. This is why I do the work of tearing down the stories that keep me imprisoned in identities and life paths that are not quite me. This is why I do the work of learning to trust and follow the voice of my Soul.

I do this work for my own liberation. I do this work for a more beautiful world.

I hope you will join me.

Today is officially my last day at my law firm. So, let me say this: I choose to leave my law firm today because I want to. There is nothing wrong here. I still love these people. I still enjoy this work. I choose to leave my law firm today because I want to follow the calling in my Soul to create a business from my art. My heart is both heavy with grief and alive with excitement, and there is not a shred or guilt or shame in me. I have learned how to own what I want, and to go about getting it respectfully and with responsibility for the consequences.

I am ready to let go. It is a perfect time for this next leg of my journey to start.

Xo,

Danielle