Don't Step on the Bluebells

The Power of Endings

• Amanda Parker • Season 1 • Episode 39

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Have you ever found yourself clinging to a relationship, job, or situation long after you knew—deep in your bones—that it was time to let go? In this powerful mini-episode, Amanda Parker reveals why our fear of endings often keeps us trapped in completed chapters, prolonging our suffering instead of creating space for new beginnings.

"As long as you're staying in a situation or position or something that doesn't fit anymore, you cannot evolve and grow into the person that you're becoming. You will be stuck because everything around you is stuck in that same place." This transformative insight sits at the heart of Amanda's message—that completion isn't failure, but an essential act of self-love that creates freedom. Through her own story of staying years too long in her wildlife conservation "dream job" until the universe finally intervened, Amanda demonstrates how resistance to necessary endings can keep us from discovering our true path.

What if every door you closed with gratitude and intention actually opened the way to possibilities you couldn't imagine while clinging to the familiar? Amanda shares the profound shifts that happened in her own life when she finally embraced completion—a journey that ultimately led her to coaching, healing work, and creating this very podcast. Her practical wisdom offers a refreshing perspective for anyone feeling stuck between knowing something is complete and finding the courage to move forward.

What chapter in your life might be ready for completion right now? As you listen, you'll gain powerful tools for identifying what's ready to be released, befriending the fear that keeps you holding on, and creating the spaciousness needed for your next beginning. Don't miss Amanda's illuminating framework for turning endings from something we dread into opportunities we embrace. Your future self will thank you for the courage to complete what's been completed.

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Amanda Parker:

When we're talking about endings, we understand that every time we end something, we're giving ourselves permission and the opportunity for a new beginning, and that discomfort that we might feel from ending something is often temporary. So staying stuck in place is what prolongs suffering. In place is what prolongs suffering. Welcome to Don't Step on the Blue Bells, the podcast where personal healing and transformation take center stage. I'm your host, amanda Parker, and I'm a fellow seeker on the journey of personal growth. Join me as I delve into the stories of gifted healers, guides and everyday people who have experienced remarkable transformations. Listen in as they share their practical wisdom to enrich your everyday life, and don't forget to hit subscribe and never miss a new episode. Welcome to today's episode of Don't Step on the Blue Bells. I'm your host, amanda Parker, and today we are doing a mini episode all about the topic of the power of endings and the power of closing things. So have you ever found yourself clinging to something maybe a job or a relationship or an old habit long after you knew that it had served its purpose and that that season of your life was done? So today we're really diving into this topic. That can often feel a bit heavy, but it's also incredibly liberating. So we're really talking about what it is when we experience something closing or something ending in our life. In most of our journeys we have experienced moments of our life where we know that something needs to come to an end, and that might be a relationship, that might be a job, that might be a city that you're living in. There's just something in your life that you recognize from maybe it's one day to the next, or it's been quietly building over time that it needs to close, and many of us have this belief that endings are somehow bad. You think of a relationship. Someone breaks up with someone that they love and it seems like this is a really bad thing, or it's really heavy. There's a period of sadness that comes with that grief. There's mourning. The same can be true if we lose someone that we love, or maybe you get fired from a job or you even quit a job that you once used to love. There's this phase that we go through when something completes. That feels like heavy emotions, it feels like sadness, and because many of us of course I'm not talking just about you, I'm putting myself in this category too many of us want to avoid some of those emotions that we deem as quote unquote negative. So if it makes us sad, if it brings heartache, if it brings suffering, loss, then we try to kind of avoid it, so we might actually avoid ending things that need to be ended, simply because we're avoiding experiencing what we feel like will be pain or suffering on the other side. So what are we actually doing in those moments when we are prolonging the ending of something?

Amanda Parker:

So staying in a relationship long after you know it is no longer the right place for you to be, or staying in a job that really doesn't feel aligned with who you are anymore? The impact of that is that you end up prolonging your own suffering. So, rather than getting that feeling of freedom, of being able to leave, to walk away, to do something that actually feels more aligned or feels better for you, you end up being more trapped in that circumstance. So it can be really difficult for us to understand this, because we probably all have memories of, you know, breakups gone wrong or going from one bad job to the next bad job. You know there's so many different ways that this can show up in our life. And Rather than viewing these endings as hardship or suffering, what if we can reframe that perspective so that it's actually about clearing space for what's coming, so giving yourself permission to say thank you. You know, thank you for everything that you've brought into my life. This is done. Now I'm ready for this to be complete and to see what is going to come into your life as a result.

Amanda Parker:

I firmly believe that completion gives us freedom. I'm not saying it always feels easy, and many of us don't really have the muscle memory of ending things well or we were never taught how to end things well. I mean, how many people in our generation everyone listening to this is in a different generation but maybe saw their parents stay in marriages that they were unhappy in and they never learned how to actually close something in a good way? If you've never been taught how to close well or you have this belief that the only way to close is with like pain and hardship and suffering, then of course, it's going to be much more difficult for you to move away from that. When we are completing something, it's really important to understand that one ending closing the door, closing something, completing it is actually a new beginning. So we have this opportunity to start something new or to let something new come in. So maybe that's new energy, new people, new opportunities, whatever they may look like.

Amanda Parker:

So in my own experience of this, I can think very clearly of one well, actually a couple of job experiences that I had, but one in particular. I was working in nonprofit. I worked in wildlife conservation. It was my dream job You've probably heard me talk about this before because it was something that was so important to me. I had landed the dream. I was doing the work that I was like meant to be doing, and yet I felt really unsatisfied in that job, like I couldn't help but knowing that there was something more for me. And it was really difficult because on paper I had already landed the dream. Really difficult because on paper I had already landed the dream.

Amanda Parker:

The result of that was that I stayed in that job for years past, when I knew that I was no longer really growing in the position. I still had work to do. I still, you know, showed up and did the best that I could, and I'm sure that I did still do a really great job. But my heart wasn't in it anymore and I knew that it was time to leave. But I was dragging my feet on leaving.

Amanda Parker:

A couple things happened. One the universe intervened. It gave me a very clear exit point from that job and it wasn't in the way that I would have designed it. So it felt like I was being forced out. But I knew even in that moment, no matter how difficult it was with the situation and the circumstance under which I left, I knew that it was the right thing. So I knew that I had to leave and that I was hesitant and I knew this was the easiest way out. Like the universe literally was like all right, now you're done, leave. And it was so clear there was no other way back.

Amanda Parker:

What happened when I did that was I could actually start pursuing the career path. That felt really aligned. It didn't mean that I didn't still care about animals and wildlife and nature and all of that, because I did and I still do. But my gifts were different. I had evolved. I wanted to help organizations run more smoothly. I wanted to help leaders do their work better so that their employees felt really excited about showing up to the office every day, and that led me on the journey of eventually becoming a coach, which took me on the journey of becoming a healer. And maybe if I had never left that job, if the universe had never intervened, we would still be talking and I'd still be in wildlife conservation and I would not really be pursuing any of that healing work or building this healers community that I have been pouring my heart into.

Amanda Parker:

Things happen for a reason. New beginnings, new opportunities can come through, and if we stop viewing endings as something that's so tragic or heavy or hard and start viewing it as like new possibility, new opportunities for everything that we want in our life, for everything that's coming through, then we give ourselves permission to end things well and to dream bigger and to allow doors to fully close, because when those doors fully close, guaranteed something new has the space to be able to come through and come into your life. Something else that is really fascinating to me. When I left that job, same as with any relationship that you might have left behind, there might be a period of that sadness and mourning as we talked about, but you're basically opening the door to the unknown. I had no idea that I would become a healer. I had no idea that I'd be a full time professional coach or that I'd even start this podcast. Those weren't things that I could plan for.

Amanda Parker:

And as long as you're staying in a situation or position or something that doesn't fit anymore, you cannot evolve and grow into the person that you're becoming. You will be stuck because everything around you is stuck in that same place. So whenever I'm working with a coaching client and we're closing off a container you know it depends how that relationship went I usually work with my clients for six or 12 months, so by the time we're closing, we're really closing a chapter and it's so clear. There's so much, you know, excited energy in that space of being able to say okay, we are done now, because you know that something new gets to come on the other side, a new opportunity. Maybe you try things out on your own for a while, you test all the things that you've learned. Without that. You know continued regular support and I always ask my clients on that last call what does it mean to be complete? And they always give their answer and it's very different every time and I find that I answer honestly in that moment with each client. But very often the answer that comes through is that completion is a new beginning. So as soon as we give ourselves permission to really fully complete something, then we're allowing something new to come in.

Amanda Parker:

So I would ask you to do a bit of an audit in your own life. So if you're thinking, yeah, okay, that sounds great, but actually I'm not ready to end these things, do an audit. See what is one thing in your life that feels like it is now complete, that you just know that the way things have been or the way that relationship has been, whatever it is, is no longer serving you and is ready to evolve or to move on. Just take notice of what that might be. Give yourself permission to really acknowledge and feel that and then ask yourself for that one thing, whatever it is, that you've identified what would complete, look and feel like. So what would it mean to really be complete with that? What kind of spaciousness or peace might that bring to you? And then befriend this with curiosity. I know this can sound really like coaching speak, but just allow yourself to feel the fear or the sadness or whatever may come up when you think about completing that thing. Maybe it's a home you want to move out of, a relationship that doesn't quite fit anymore, a city that you're no longer in love with and don't want to live in anymore and don't want to live in anymore and just ask that fear as it comes up, what exciting new possibility could emerge from the space that would be created if I left this behind. Give yourself permission to explore those questions, to see what comes up for you and to let it be playful to see what new possibilities and ideas might emerge.

Amanda Parker:

So remember that when we're talking about endings, we understand that every time we end something, we're giving ourselves permission and the opportunity for a new beginning, and that discomfort that we might feel from ending something is often temporary. So staying stuck in place is what prolongs suffering. But actually closing something out and experiencing any of the emotions that come with that isn't going to last forever. You actually have the power to decide when a chapter is complete. So give yourself permission and really trust yourself to know when something is no longer serving you and when it's time to move forward. There is so much freedom and power in being able to do that and also give yourself permission to get it wrong. Sometimes Maybe you will make mistakes, maybe you'll close something out before it's fully ready and you will learn from it. So you can't perfect this. There's no way to get it 100% right or 100% wrong. So completion is really opening that door to something new, and giving yourself that permission to embrace endings is an act of self-love. So I hope that this has given you a bit of food for thought on what it actually means to be complete with something and to take a look at your own life and get honest with yourself about what closings might be on the horizon for you, knowing and trusting fully that whenever you close something, there is space for something new to come in.

Amanda Parker:

Thank you so much for tuning in to this Minnesota of don't step on the blue bells. I am your host, amanda Parker. I have loved sharing this insight with you today and can't wait to see you in the next one. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of don't step on the blue bells. If you enjoyed this conversation, please give the podcast a five-star rating wherever you listen, and don't forget to hit subscribe and follow along so you never miss a new episode.

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