The courage to release it

Welcome back to the Made For More Podcast. This week we are talking about having the courage to release it. We are also shining a light on a way of growth that might not always look like growth- reducing, releasing and knowing when something no longer is in alignment with our lives. 

Thanks for joining me on this weeks conversation!

Transcript

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Welcome back to the Made for More podcast, and welcome to your invitation of more. More can look like so many unique, individualized things in our lives, and they're gonna be individualized to our own unique stories. And we are going to talk about that today because I am here to make an announcement about a career pivot, and I'm also going to just give you a backstory and inside look as to what this transition looks like and means to me. My hope is that this is your reminder that growth can look like two different things. And I think it is important to recognize that this conversation is one that I don't think is often had. But we're gonna talk about what it looks like to put something down or to release something when it no longer is serving its time of season within our life, and when life is asking for a different version of us. And I'm here to invite you into the conversation. So I want to tell you, you are welcome here, and you are seen here, and I hope you can put this message in your back pocket as a reminder that sometimes seasons look different than we predicted, and that could mean a season for a career pivot. It could mean a season for a relationship change. Maybe it is a move, um, maybe it's an opportunity, maybe it's a closing of something. Whatever's meant for you won't miss you. And it's a reminder that you can trust yourself, and above all, you can trust God and his um time for your life and his purpose for your life. So I want to go ahead and start by saying that I have made a decision that I am closing my loft where I built Evolve Studio, my hair salon, and it is closing this week. I'm moving out this week. So, what does this next step look like for me? It means uh smaller space, running on a much smaller scale and a much smaller capacity. It means slowly reducing and scaling back the further further I get along within my pregnancy. And I actually think that I really, really need this. I have so many emotions when it comes towards this decision, but I really think I need this. I think my body needs this. I think my emotional and physical state needs this. You know, standing for long hours, serving others, pouring into others, going long periods of time without food or going to the bathroom. Those are just things that I'm not able to do nor capable of doing the further I get along. And I am honestly in a place where I am ready to stop abandoning myself for the sake of the hustle and bustle behind business. So, what this is gonna look like over the next couple of days is I am moving to a much smaller space. It's a space that is not mine. I am going to be going to a place where it is temporary and it's just to help me um transition to just taking a fewer amounts of clients. I can't take everybody with me. I'm going to shorter, fewer, less working days. But, you know, all of that reducing actually equals something within my life. It means more margin for my family and my personal life. That means more time and opportunity for food and bathroom breaks, more rest, more attention to detail of what my body needs and what my body's trying to tell me. It means more energy left for the remainder of my pregnancy. And for the first time in a very long time, it means less pressure on myself to maximize everything, to take care of so much, to serve on such a big level and manage all of the things. And I am just ready. So as I reduce one thing, I see in my in my life that I'm gaining other things. And I want you to know that I have personally realized on this journey that there's a difference between quitting something because it just became like too difficult and you just gave up and you toss in the towel, and having the wisdom to recognize that the way that you have been doing things and the race that you've been running is something that you no longer see sustainable for this season of life and what life needs out of you. Um, scaling back doesn't necessarily mean that I became some less ambitious person, somebody that isn't interested in growth anymore. It honestly, for me, I'm realizing it's just meaning that my definition of ambition and success is honestly maturing and evolving into a different shape. And it's in it's evolving me into the version of me that I now need to become for this next transition of life. So the backstory here that I want you to know is there have been moments in the past that didn't quite make a lot of sense to me that now make sense. And I can see the full picture. There was a moment for me in 2025, very normal day, unpacking my things out of my car, headed into the salon lofts, a very normal working day. And as I was walking into the doors of the building, I felt God say, This door will be closing. And I barely made it to my room before I had tears in my eyes. I got in there, I felt very panicky all of a sudden, I felt very emotional, and I did not know what that meant, and it really scared me because things were going well, I was thriving, I had just made an advancement in the lofts by moving to a bigger room, and I did not really know what that meant, but I just held on to that and carried that with me. And then just a short couple of months ago, I was finishing a work day and I just sat down in one of my chairs in my room, and I was honestly just doom scrolling, mindlessly scrolling, and I really felt like God was like, Hey, you're distracting yourself. I need you to put your phone down and I need you to pray over your business. So I was like, Okay, that really caught my attention. And so I put my phone down and I was just praying about things, and I was like, What should I pray about? And then I felt like I locked eyes with my evolve sign that's in my room, and I was just staring at it, and I felt like God said to me, It's very important that you understand that evolve is not an LLC, it's not a hair salon. Evolve is the core of who you are, and I need you to understand that. And feeling that in that moment, I was like, okay, that's interesting, and it felt personal. And so now here we are, and I can see those God winks, and I can see those pieces of transition, those pieces of change that have been planted along the way, and I get it now because God knows my heart, He knows that I'm not great with change, He knows I need a lot of confirmation and affirmation to make sure I'm making the right decisions. And so I can see now as I've gotten closer and closer to this decision, I can see those God winks and see that, like, okay, this was planted long before so that I would have peace and trust and understanding that I was making the right decision by making this transition. So I'm making the transition to move, to slow down, reduce, and scale back. And then I'm going to go out on maternity leave before Christmas, and I have no plan to return. And I am just being very transparent about that. I never want to say never, but I also don't want to have this pressure to feel like I have a ticking time clock of the days or weeks to come back. I want to see what my life looks like and feels like. And who knows, that could be a couple of months off, that could be six months off, that could be a year, that could be forever. So things are interesting as I'm slowly working my way to come to a pause on my career. And if you've listened to previous episodes, you can see where I've taken pauses in other areas. And again, another God wink to preparation to teach me how to pause other things so that I can eventually make a really big pause with my career. So through this process, I have really unpacked how I'm feeling and what I'm processing. And I have some really valuable pieces to my story that I want to share with you that I hope leave an impact in your life. And I want to talk about why I think it's important to recognize and release what no longer feels like it's meant for our lives or meant for the season that we are in in our lives. I think we often hear the words growth. And what does that make us think of? It makes you think of the word more, right? It makes you think of doing more, becoming more, being more, growing more. But I want to tell you that something that I've realized is that at the same time, I think sometimes growth can also look like subtracting or removing or releasing what no longer is fitting. We just don't really hear about this talked about often because growing towards something more or doing more honestly sounds more attractive. It sounds more trendy, satisfying, and successful. But I think it takes incredible strength, bravery, and bold courage to go after something or pursue something. But I think you also take just as much courage and bravery and bold strength to know when it's time to release it or to put it down and to walk away. And I thought about this from a visual perspective, if you're a visual learner like myself, but you think about nature and you think about a tree. And a tree doesn't hold on to every leaf it ever grows for all of its life. It knows when it's time to release that version of leaves. It knows when it's time to shed, and it's also not scared to do so. It releases it and it knows it's gonna go into a barren season and knows it's going to go into a shedding process, and it doesn't question how long it will be here or if this is what things are gonna look like forever, or if I will bloom again. It just trusts that nature provides exactly what it needs, and if it's not willing to shed one season, it can't prepare for the next. So for me, I am simply just reminding myself of that. And I'm reminding myself that shedding and releasing, even something that you have dreamed of and worked very hard for, it's not failure, it's not loss, it's not giving up or some kind of setback, but maybe it's just you releasing your grip on what's no longer needed for this season, and you're welcoming in the shedding for preparation of what's to come. So, although it's not really my first instinct to think this way, my first instinct is to grab on and cling tight to what I know. I am just telling myself that this is just a reminder of truth and it's bringing me comfort, and especially when I tie it back to nature. So, right now I'm in this space that is the in-between. I'm learning how to reflect and be tremendously incredibly grateful for what all opening Evolve Studio has taught me and done for me while also carrying gratitude and trust that I know that it was there for a season and it served purpose. And now it is time for me to understand that I need to release my grip and put it down. I know that Evolve is who I am, it is not an LLC or just an LLC. Evolve is not just a hair salon, evolve and evolving is what I am meant to continuously do, no matter where I am or what season I'm in. And I know that the truth is you cannot evolve if you stay put in the places that you're at and if you cling to what you know. And if I'm honest, for me that would be easier. That would be easier to stay put, to cling to what I know, to protect what I've built, and to keep just doing what I'm doing. That would be the easy route. The harder thing for me is to lean into this pull that I feel to raise my hands and to say I release this without clinging to the comfortability of it based out of fear. I have processed and I know that it is harder for me to choose to get uncomfortable. It is harder for me to invite and welcome in change. It's easier for me to just do what I know has worked and to stay in a place that is predictable. So even as I shed this process and I feel all of the feels that are coming and rising up along with it, I have to remember and remind myself that I am leaving a building. I am not leaving behind the person that I became within this building. And she gets to go with me. And I think that this is so important, especially if you're making a hard transition in your life. Knowing that you are leaving the space, but you're not leaving the person that was developed there. The skills that you picked up, knowledge, the heart, the vision behind it all, it all gets to go with me. It's not connected or tied to a building or to a lease. It is connected to me. It's connected to the core of who I am and who I became throughout the process of the things that I have envisioned and the things that I built. So two things can exist at once. I can be very proud of myself for what I built, how I served in the process, and where the journey has led me. But I can also be here to say that I am carrying grief. I have to know that grief and sadness does not mean that I'm making the wrong decision when that rises up. I just have to know and trust that grief is there because this means so much to me and it's hard to let go. But doing all of this, it doesn't mean that there's no guilt attached or tied to this when I decided to make this decision. It was no easy decision because here is what I've deeply struggled with. I know how hard I had to work to get here. 14 years in the industry, thinking back to where I started, to where I am now. I have to continuously remind myself through this process that all of the work that was done over all of these years was not wasted just because this destination is not a permanent one. And maybe the purpose wasn't ever meant for me to stay here and hold on to it for forever. Maybe part of the purpose was becoming the woman who was capable of envisioning it, dreaming it, creating it in my mind, and then bringing it to life and building it in the first place, and then also being the one becoming confident and secure enough in myself to know that I no longer needed to cling on to it to prove that I have to keep it. And I heard something this past week on a podcast episode that really resonated with me. And I want to give credit where credit is due. I heard this saying on the podcast called Still Coloring. I'll put that in the show notes so you guys can refer back to it. But the host was interviewing someone, and the person said, the world measures success, but God measures fruit. And I had to press pause and say that again out loud. And then I really sat here with those words and I thought about the depth of what something like that means. And you know, the world does measure success by what our eyes can see, by what can be counted on. But God looks at the fruit being produced within our own individual lives. So the world may ask, how big did something get, or how much money did you make, how many people noticed, how viral did a goal go? What did you accomplish? But the biblical picture of fruit looks different than the world's idea of success. Fruit looks like things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control. So while something can look incredibly successful to the world from the outside, it can also be producing something within you that causes exhaustion. Maybe it's pride, maybe it's developing ego brain, resentment, disconnection, or just a life that does not feel aligned to what God is asking of you. And while something that looks like downsizing, releasing, simplifying, or even walking away to the outside world can look not quite like success, it can also be producing tremendous fruit within your life that brings you peace, energy, capacity, abundance, and calm. So I'm leaning into this idea and asking myself, and I'm asking you to ask yourself, how can we focus on building and seeing fruit in our lives above worldly success? And if you can find balance for both, amazing. And I'm not saying success is a bad thing whatsoever. I think it's beautiful, but you have to ask yourself is worldly success the goal? And what is being produced in my stride for that success is something else taking a loss at the cost of my stride for success? If becoming more successful makes me a less present person with the people that I love, if it's making me chronically anxious, obsessed with proving myself, unwilling to rest or slow down, if it's making me disconnected from God or unable to recognize when enough is enough, then I may be succeeding to the I while becoming less fruitful internally. And I honestly feel like that pinpoints exactly where I was getting in my career. And we have to remember that our nature from childhood has really taught us naturally that success is good. Like success equals attention, your self-worth, achievement, power, and getting praised by others. So we can't blame ourselves for naturally wanting to achieve something that reflects our success. But when our identity is no longer dependent on maintaining the evidence of our success, we're finally free to ask much deeper questions like God, what do you want my life to produce now? And asking that question while removing yourself or your self-desires from that question and really asking what God wants out of our lives. While reflecting on this transition, I thought about how different spaces that we've been in, whether it could be a job, a job position, maybe it's a house or a location, they all hold pieces of who we are or who we were within that space. It holds a reflection of who we became in that season, right? A physical place becomes attached to our identity of who you became there. So sometimes. Leaving that place or closing that chapter can almost feel like you're leaving that person behind in a sense. But we have to remember, just like I said about the building, we are leaving a space. We are not leaving the core of who we are. And we have to remember that if we want growth, real growth, that means that we are meant to evolve and grow and expand. And sometimes that means like closing a door. And I just want you to know that you can be so deeply grateful for a place that you were in and still know that that season is complete. You can say that this place held an important version of who I am without believing that you have to stay there to be that person. You starting the next phase of your life or your journey or going on to the next space or the next room or the next building or the next relationship or the next city as the person, you're going there as the person that the last space helped you to become. And isn't that a beautiful way to release our grip and to step out into something new and maybe something unknown? And you can do that with such gratitude and such power. I think what this season is asking of me is just something that looks different than what I've known. And because of that, it can make me afraid to reduce something that I've worked really hard to increase and secure. I worked to get booked and to stay booked. I worked to build trust and loyalty. I've worked to attract and cultivate a certain type of clientele. So intentionally choosing less can feel very contradicting. However, there's so much freedom somehow existing in both being afraid and also finding peace in all of this. I'm realizing that I don't have to keep proving something that I already proved to myself. I already learned how to dream and create and build a business from scratch. I already learned that the right people will choose me and the right people will stay. I already experienced what life looks like for me at full capacity, booked and busy. And the reality is I don't need to spend the rest of my days or the rest of my career maintaining maximum capacity just to validate what I already know to be true. There came a time within this season where my questions began to change from can I build it or can I do it? To do I still really want to do it this way? Do I still really want to carry this much? And those are really two completely different questions. And I had to really, really pray about it and weigh out the pros and the cons of it all. And I touched on it lightly, but you know, I was dealing with some health issues at the beginning of the beginning of May, and it led me on this journey of debilitating panic attacks. And what I'm unpacking now is that I do believe that those panic attacks came on from self-abandonment over and over and over again. And me ignoring the signs and the signals my body was asking of me until my body just had a response. My body was asking for attention and I kept going. My body was asking for rest and having some boundaries within the workplace. Yet I kept saying yes, and yet I kept going, and I kept saying not now. And eventually those things stack up and teach your brain and teach your body that you're not important to slow down, you're not important to take care of your health. And those stack up and the body does keep score, and mine sure did until it all came to a head. I'm in a place where part of this decision came from understanding how important my health is because I was down in May. Not only that, but I'm carrying this beautiful opportunity of growing this baby boy. And my body really needs me to listen to signals, especially in pregnancy. You don't get to pick how your pregnancy goes, it picks how it goes, and you have to just adapt when your body is asking for things. My body needs me available and present and able to serve it. I cannot ignore needs anymore. I cannot just serve it when it's convenient or serve it when I have time. So, as hard as the decision is to close my loft and close evolve, I just know that at the end of the day, thinking about all of this, this is the right decision for me. It really just feels like I'm going through somewhat of a breakup with my identity that's tied to my business. And then on top of that, it feels like I'm going through like a hundred breakups with clients. Having to explain this over and over again and prepare them for what's ahead. And for me no longer being available or me reducing or me being at capacity or me coming to a pause is just really, really hard. It's not just me changing my schedule or location or availability. It's like I'm changing a bunch of tiny, important and unique dynamics and relationships that I have built through the years. Like my clients are not transactions to me. My clients are not numbers to me. They're not even income to me. They are so much more to me. And I have a fear and a wonder um attached to am I the same to them? And I'm just being honest. To some, I know that I'm just their hairstylist, I'm replaceable, they'll move on. But to some I do know I'm more, but I do have a fear and a worry, and um it's just into the unknown that some of these people won't think of me or connect with me ever again once I go on maternity leave. I personally look forward to seeing each of these people and catching up between services and circling back to things that we talked about previously. But I have asked myself, will I be remembered in the same way? And that's just a true fear in all of this. A worry that I've had is did I matter beyond what I could just provide for them? Or did I only matter for what I was needed for? And that's just me being brutally honest again about part of this transition and the emotions behind it. There are a lot of layers to what I'm doing and what this process is doing to me and within me. There's a lot that's coexisting, and there's a lot of excitement about change, but there's also a lot of peace, but there's also grief and some identity shifts. Above all, I know that this next transition is so necessary, and I actually do want it, and I actually am ready for it, and I'm inviting it in. I just really wanted to share a deeper inside look to what things really look like for me behind the scenes. We often see a lot of people's lives, and we just see the surface of what someone chooses to do or walks through, and maybe we look and just think that a choice is easy or smooth, and I just refuse to live like that. I'm gonna share the highs and the lows and everything in between. And honestly, I just share the posture of my heart, and I wear my emotions very, very forward. I don't know how else to be. It is organically how I am, and I don't want to be anything else. I want I want to share the heart behind it all. I think it shows that it means so much to me, even if it's a hard decision. So thank you for allowing me to process this out loud with you. I hope that if or when it ever comes to you to make a change in or transition within your life or a space in your life that you can remember this episode and you can find courage and strength and relatability to come back to this and to know that you can still be made for more, whether you're going out and you're shooting for your shot and you're dreaming big, bold dreams, and you are also still made for more, even if there's peace and discernment to stop doing something or to take a step back or to release something or to transition in a way that you didn't see coming. If you have been with me behind the chair or given me any type of chance over the last 14 years behind the chair, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you have ever followed me between moves or been patient with me, or are currently on this journey with me, thank you. And to those of you who have already said, you truly want nothing but the best for me, for my family, and our growing baby, thank you. Thank you for wishing me well, and thank you for putting my health and my family and my baby above all of your other needs. So, what I lastly want to say to you is here is a big cheers to shedding and releasing. Here is to not white knuckle gripping onto things that no longer feel like alignment in our lives. Here is to our future and whatever unfolds, and here is to always remembering that we are all made for more, and we always have been.