A Spell for Leaving With Integrity
Last week, I talked about Evolutionary Discomfort.
Choosing the discomfort of change and growth
over the discomfort of settling.
So often, this requires us to leave behind
jobs, relationships, and associations
that don’t support our values.
This spell will help you decide if it’s time to go
in a self-honoring, self-loving way.
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Mentioned:
Mind Witchery 112: A Spell for Evolutionary Discomfort
Stephen Karpman’s Drama Triangle
Make Magic:
When you speak the words “I’m unwilling,” how does that feel in your body?
If the line you’re drawing feels right in your breath, in your posture,
that’s a good way to know that you’re making the decision to leave
in integrity with your self and your values.
Transcript: A Spell for Leaving With Integrity
Natalie Miller: Welcome to Mind Witchery. I’m your host, Natalie Miller, and I’m so glad you’re here.
Hello, honey bun. I am sitting here in my little podcasting nest on a very gray and rainy day. I've got my coffee, I've got Kevin in my lap, and it's a very cozy vibe. So that is, I hope, going to keep me nice and grounded as I talk about something really powerful and maybe even a little bit tough, and that is leaving things. Today's spell is a spell for leaving with integrity.
And I wanted to do this spell on the heels of last week's episode, which was about evolutionary discomfort, about the idea that it is uncomfortable whether you stay or whether you go, so like which discomfort do you choose? And I wondered if maybe that line of thinking got you taking more seriously the idea of leaving a situation that no longer serves you.
And so what kind of situation? I don't know. Based on what I do with my clients, it might be leaving a relationship. It might be leaving a job or an association with a particular organization. It might be leaving a program of your own making, leaving an offer that you no longer love delivering. It could mean leaving a role that you have been assuming in your family or your friend group. Yeah?
So today's episode is all about leaving with integrity. And what I mean by integrity is oneness. I love that definition of integrity. Integrity comes from the root integer, which is like a whole number, all contained, no decimals, no fractions, just wholeness, everything together and aligned.
And so I think about integrity as being like where my thoughts and my feelings are resonant with one another—and they can be complex, but they are aligned—where my body is on board, my mind is on board, my spirit is on board, where what I am doing is what I want to be doing, where what I am doing is aligned with my values. It's where like, yeah, this feels good, and this is good, meaning, it's aligned with who and how I want to be. That to me is integrity.
And I should be clear [laughs] that feeling good does not necessarily mean feeling comfortable. Right? Sometimes when we are growing into like a larger or a truer self-expression, it feels very uncomfortable, and yet there's like an inner alignment that does feel good or that feels true. And, again, it's not a one note. [laughs] It's not like one flavor.
There will be many. It will be complex because we are complex. We're multiplex. We have lots of parts. And yet the place where we feel like, yeah, we can stand in this and feel like we're living on purpose, not that we're being reactive, not that we are compromising ourselves beyond what we are willing to do. That we're like, yes, everything feels cohesive here. That's integrity.
And you might even take a moment to remember a time when you felt that, when you were in full integrity, when you were making a whole self-honoring choice or move. Honestly, if it were me, I would need to pause this [laughs] and like really think back. But you could do that, and just feel how that feels in your body, remembering a moment of integrity.
I think back to my very first night in my apartment when I separated from my kids' dad, like that very first night in this apartment that has almost no furniture. It's December. It's cold. The apartment is so tiny. My kids are at the house. They'll join me the next night, but this night they are with their dad.
I have my dogs with me. I have a candle lit. I have my favorite throw blanket. I have my journal. And I just remember feeling whole; a little sad, yes; a little scared but nowhere near as scared as I thought I would be. Actually, I felt incredibly safe, maybe more safe than I had felt in more than a decade.
I felt like I had my own back. I felt like what I was doing was aligned with my truth. I think back to that moment, and time expands. I am no longer slogging through kind of a Groundhog Day situation with everyday annoyance, everyday dread, everyday just surviving. Like, no, I'm fully present in my wild and precious life.
To me, that is what the moment of integrity feels like, and this spell is about that for you. So whatever it is that you might be considering leaving again—relationship, friendship, role, association, neighborhood--I don't know, whatever it is you're thinking about leaving, here are some thoughts about how you might do so with integrity.
The first thing that feels to me very, very important is to go with a version of--it's not exactly [laughs]--a version of, "it's not you, it's me," that is, to own the decision from a proactive place. Even if you are responding to things that you aren't aligning with, even if you are, annoyed or repulsed by things that are happening, to really stand in your own power and agency, and to own that this is a choice you are making.
You know that like that phrase like, "you've left me no choice"? I just don't ever believe in that, and I don't see that as a place of integrity because, for real, for real, we exist at choice, all of us. Now, some of us have way fewer choices than others, but all of us exist at choice. We always have a choice. And so leaving with integrity means owning that choice.
So here are kind of two beginnings, two phrases that can help us do that. One is, "I want." So I'll think back to one of my own experiences, a place where I left without integrity, meaning, I didn't feel integrated. I didn't feel that sense of calm power. I felt very reactive. So this is when I was leaving graduate school.
I was quite miserable in graduate school, which, I know, I know, everyone is, but really my program had like a 60% attrition rate. People left a lot. And, in my view, it was a very emotionally abusive place.
And when I left, I had actually asked for leave. I was on stipend there, and I said I needed a year off. And they refused to give me the year. So I reacted. And, listen, much frustration and anger and hurt had been building up for a long time, so I reacted with, "Well, I'm--I quit then." And they said, "Well, you can't just come back. If you quit, you'll have to reapply to come back." And I was basically [laughs] like, "Yeah, don't wait up, you know?"
So while I did have this kind of burst of empowerment because I finally stood up for myself, I don't think that I stood in all the power I had, or I don't think I collected it and channeled it in that moment. Now, the phrase "I want," I think that would have helped me if I had said, "I want more support with my writing. I want collegiality in this department. I want to teach in the writing center, but I do not want to work on my dissertation. I do not want to be a TA at all."
Like, if I really sat with what I wanted, and went with that, "Here's what I want," I wonder how that conversation would've gone. I imagine that by standing in my desires, claiming my power to choose, I imagine I would have had more choices available to me. They certainly needed people in the writing center, and I certainly needed money in that moment, right?
Now, am I always going to get what I want? Of course not. But that's not the point. The point is standing in my power, standing with my preferences, with what I do want, not with all my judgments, not with all the piles and piles of things that I don't want, but rather with the change I do want to co-create. Yeah? "I want," like really being in that place.
There's a concept that I teach. I'm trained to teach it. It's called the Empowerment Dynamic. So maybe some of you out there have heard of the Drama Triangle, or maybe you've even been in a class where I've taught the Drama Triangle. But in the Drama Triangle, which is a Stephen Karpman concept, the Drama Triangle is all centered around a victim that is someone that we are assuming does not have power in the situation. And that assumption is in and of itself disempowering, right?
Now, this does not mean that people aren't victimized. One hundred per cent, people are victimized in our culture and here on planet Earth. Victimization is very different from victimhood. Victimization says, yes, there has been a victim of a situation. But victimhood says, so therefore, that person is always a victim.
The empowerment dynamic rejects that, and says, no, actually people are creators. People exist at choice. Just because a victim has been victimized does not mean that person is a victim forever. That person, rather, is a creator, and the more they step into their creative power, the more power they have.
Now, how do you get from victim to creator, or from the Drama Triangle to the Empowerment Dynamic? You ask the question, "What do I want?" So think about that for the situation that you might be considering leaving. Rather than all what they did wrong, all the bullshit, all that you're sick of, all that you don't want anymore, what do you want? And just notice what happens when you step into that thinking, what you do want, what you're moving toward rather than away from.
OK. So that's one prompt. What do you want—"I want"--that will help you leave with integrity? Here's another one: "I am no longer willing to." And "I am no longer willing to," is in opposition to, "I can't." Right?
Like, ugh, I can't take it anymore. I can't take leadership's refusal to acknowledge the need for more staff in this organization. I can't take it anymore. I can't take my partner's unwillingness to go to therapy. Right?
When we say, "I can't take it," we're saying, "I don't have the power. I don't have any power." And to me, this is not in integrity because the truth of you is that you have so much power. So when you switch from "I can't" to "I am unwilling to," there is a reclaiming of that power. "I am unwilling to do the work of four people." I am unwilling to continue in an understaffed organization."
"I am unwilling to be in a relationship without help communicating." This one, I would love for you to feel in your body. So think about what's the thing you're unwilling to do anymore. This place that you want to leave, this relationship, this situation, what are you unwilling to do anymore? And I'd love for you to say in your head, "I can't." [laughs] Right?
"I can't continue in an organization I'm not aligned with. I can't do it." Feel that in your body. What do you notice in your body when you say that? What's your posture like? What's your breathing like? What's the look on your face like when you say, "I can't"?
Take a breath in and out, and then try this. "I am unwilling. I am unwilling to continue in an organization that does not align with my values." What do you feel? What do you feel in your posture? What do you feel in your face? What do you feel in your breath? "I am unwilling. I am not the victim here. I am a co-creator. I want to make something different." "I want to participate in something more aligned."
What you are feeling, my love, when you say, "I am unwilling," when you say, "This is what I want," what you're feeling in your body, that is integrity.
OK. I hope this helps you. I hope it helps you stand fully in your power to choose. I don't want for you a Groundhog Day life full of shit you don't want. I want for you that expansive, evolutionary, wild, and precious life that is yours for the making. As always, thanks for listening. Bye for now.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Mind Witchery. To catch all the magic I’m offering, please subscribe to the show, or if you want a little bit of weekly witchiness in your inbox, sign up for my Sunday Letter at mindwitchery.com. If today’s episode made you think of a friend or loved one, your sister, your neighbor, please tell them about it. We need more magic-makers in this troubled world.
Like all good things, this podcast is co-created by stellar people. Our music is by fabulous DJ, artist, and producer, Shammy Dee. Our gorgeous art is by the sorcerers at New Moon Creative. Mind Witchery is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, executive producer. And I am Natalie Miller. Till next time.
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