You’re sitting in a meeting that used to energize you, but now you’re mentally calculating how many more months you can hold on. Or maybe you’re lying awake at 3 AM, quietly planning your exit while your partner sleeps beside you, unaware that everything’s about to change.
Perhaps you’ve already left—handed in your notice, stepped down from that role, closed that chapter—but you can’t stop replaying conversations, second-guessing your choice, wondering if you made a terrible mistake.
December has a way of making these reckonings louder, doesn’t it?
Here’s what I’ve learned working with hundreds of driven women navigating exactly these waters: the hardest part isn’t usually the leaving. It’s the space between knowing something needs to change and actually changing it. Or the aftermath—that grief-soaked fog after you’ve finally done the hard thing and everyone expects you to be relieved.
Maybe you’re actively plotting your exit from something that no longer fits. Maybe you’re quietly questioning whether you belong where you are. Or maybe you’re mourning something you’ve already left behind, trying to metabolize what happened without the “everything happens for a reason” platitudes that make you want to scream.
Sound familiar?
You’re not imagining the weight of this. Research shows that identity-based transitions—leaving jobs, roles, relationships—activate the same neural pathways as physical pain. Your body is grieving the loss of who you were, even if that version of you was exhausted and unsustainable.
This week’s workbook offers seven practices for navigating these endings with the dignity they deserve—no forced positivity, no “moving on” with a smile, just honest tools for metabolizing what’s real.
