As the air gets crisper and colors shift from green to gold, there’s a profound business lesson to be found in the falling leaves. The season of fall, or autumn, teaches us a crucial concept for any company: the art of letting go.

Shaking the Tree of Your Business

Just as trees shed their leaves, businesses can also benefit from periodically letting things go. Think about your own company. What are the “leaves” you can afford to release?. It might not be a yearly process, but every now and then, it’s valuable to metaphorically shake the tree of your organization.

This exercise helps you distinguish between the different parts of your business:

• The Roots and Branches: These are the core, essential elements that you must keep.
• The Leaves: These are the parts that can be let go of

You might even be able to spot some “leaves” that are already colored and “about to fall off” on their own, projects, processes, or ideas that have run their course.

Trusting the Process of Renewal

The most challenging part of this process is having faith in what comes next. Can you trust the process of letting go? It requires believing that by releasing the old, you are making space for something new to emerge and flourish.
This act of letting go isn’t about loss; it’s about preparing for future growth. The new leaves won’t appear until the spring, but the shedding in autumn is what makes that renewal possible. We must trust that after we let things fall away, something new will arise and grow in its place.

What Will You Let Go Of?

So, as you watch the leaves fall, take a moment to reflect on your own business. I’m curious, what are you going to let go of? What leaves are you going to let fall down.

In this vlog I explain more about letting go in the fall.

Below it, I give you 5 insights about letting go.

During a two-day workshop by Jan Jacob Stam, I learned 5 important lessons about saying goodbye.

1. Draw a line under the balance

Saying goodbye is always about accepting an imbalance in giving and receiving.
When you say goodbye to something or someone, you will have to accept that you have given more or that you have received more. Everywhere where we are part of a bigger whole, you give to the bigger whole and you also receive from it. In a healthy situation this is more or less in balance. With saying goodbye you can be sure there is an imbalance. You have to take it as it is. You cannot change it anymore. Often it is more difficult to accept that you have received too much than that you have given too much. Every claim that you still hold on the other, or every wish to give back something, will keep you connected forever. That is why it is so important to accept the imbalance and be willing to draw a line under the balance.

2. Let go what you have given, but take back what is deeply yours

In a situation or with a person, sometimes you gave away something of yourself. Something that really belongs to you and that you still need for the rest of your life. Think of your heart, your ability to trust, or the source of your joy of life. It is good to realize that you can take this back again, with or without permission of the other people involved. In this way you make yourself complete again and you can use it for your own life.
This is something different than the products of your heart or of your joy of life. Those you gave away and the other may do with them what he or she wants. It is important to leave that with the other and not control anymore if the other is using it in the right way.

3. The power of the point that is the origin of two opposite choices

Sometimes you come in a situation where there seem to be two choices and both are “bad”. It is good to know that there is a point that is the source of both choices. In Japanese this point is called Ba. This point can be in the past, but interesting enough it can also be in the future. By going to this point (inside yourself or in a constellation), you can dissolve the seeming contradiction and a way opens for you to say goodbye.

4. Which pulling forces of the bigger system keep you stuck?

We often stay in patterns that are created by a pulling force in our family system of origin. The patterns that were created there have an invisible attraction and cause us to repeat things that are not serving us. Because the cause is invisible, we try to find solutions or ways out that don’t work. It is useful to discover which force from our system is holding us stuck in these patterns. Only then you can really say goodbye. You can ask yourself: “who is the secret client of what I do?” or “who do I protect by continuing to do it this way?” or “whose eyes cannot watch me if I do it differently?” or “to whom am I loyal by doing it like this?” or “whose wish do I fulfill by doing this?”. Trust your inner knowing.

5. Three ways of relating with the future

When it is about a new beginning and looking into the future, it is interesting to see three kinds of future.
The first is a future that is coming towards us. A movement from the future to us. We cannot influence this one. It brings so-called positive and negative things. Here it is about surrender.
The second is the future we create by making plans and designing a path. This future looks like it is makeable and has often only so-called positive aspects. In the now, these two come together.
The third kind of future is the future that wants to manifest itself through you. This is your life path, your mission, the living of your full potential. Can you allow this completely?

What are you going to do with this?

In the constellations during the workshop, we could clearly see and feel on many levels how these principles work and what kind of freedom came after someone made steps in this.

You can look for yourself where you want to say goodbye. Then you can go through the points above and see how they influence your goodbye process. Trust that everybody, also you, has a strong inner systemic knowing. So trust your intuitive impulses.

You might need support with the process of letting go. Using powerful, intuitive methods like business and family constellations, I can help you let go and create space for something new. You can choose to have an individual coach session or follow one of my (online) courses. Contact me if you want more information.