Relief Means Release: Knowing When You've Outgrown It

Most people can tell when they've outgrown a pair of pants. It's a lot harder to tell with a job, a friendship, or a version of your life that used to fit just fine. Nothing tears. Nothing pinches. It just stops feeling like much of anything.

In this episode of Candid Coach Conversations, Kimberly Boyd, founder of Live Life Fully, sits down with certified Live Life Fully coach Teresa Anderson, a licensed therapist and the author of The Table, to talk about how you know when something has run its course... and how to let it go without turning it into a war.

Is it familiar, or is it fulfilling?

Kimberly opens with socks. She buys the cute ones, they fit, she loves them, and then somehow they become the kind that won't stay over her heel. Her feet didn't grow. Did the socks shrink? She isn't sure. That's the point... with most things in life, you can't always say what changed. You just notice that it doesn't fit the way it used to.

Teresa's first question cuts straight through it: is it familiar, or is it fulfilling? Kimberly immediately dubs it "the two Fs."

Familiar feels good. Teresa compares it to the old dirt road, the old sweater, the busted pair of jeans, the fuzzy socks with holes in them. Some of that is nostalgic, and she'd keep a lot of it forever. But when it comes to lifestyle, health, and the small changes that would make life better, familiar is exactly where people get stuck. It's comfortable enough that nothing forces a decision.

When life loses its seasoning

Teresa admits she has the opposite problem from most people. She loves change. If something gets too familiar, her instinct is to go, and she sometimes has to make herself stay still.

So her signal isn't restlessness. It's disengagement. She notices herself floating through things instead of enjoying them, and the connection to an idea, a job, or a person starts to feel bland. "It's almost like food," she says. "All its seasoning." Kimberly's version is hospital mashed potatoes. Teresa adds hospital lighting. Either way, the message is the same: when it tastes like nothing, something has to give.

Outgrowing someone doesn't mean leaving them

This is where the conversation gets tender. Kimberly is quick to say that outgrowing a relationship isn't ugly unless you behave that way, and it doesn't automatically mean walking out. She goes back to the life audit: Where am I? What do I want? What role am I playing in this feeling flat? Is there anything I can do to bring the spark back? And she's clear that she means every kind of relationship... coworkers and friendships, not just romance.

Teresa points to what makes it so hard. Sometimes people are more afraid of disappointing someone than they are excited about staying. Her answer is to get clear on what has actually changed, and to let the relationship change with it. "Maybe you were my five main people and now I need to move you into place 10 or 11 or 12." You don't have to disengage. You do have to be honest that it's different now.

For Teresa, honesty is the one thing you genuinely owe people. Telling the truth gives the other person room to admit the relationship feels different for them too. Sometimes that leads to a reset. Sometimes it leads to a goodbye, and she offers a way to say it: our season is up, I'm grateful for the time we had, and I release you in gratitude. Kimberly calls that personal freedom, both for you and for the person you're releasing.

The eagle on Hope Island

Kimberly shares a story she returns to often, one she heard from Ed Mylett. After one of the two bald eagles on his island died, the one left behind began plucking out her feathers and striking her beak against the rocks. He was sure she was dying and called the vet, who stayed for days to watch her. The diagnosis surprised everyone. She wasn't dying. She was plucking what no longer served her. In time she found a new mate.

Kimberly uses it as a reminder for herself with relationships, clients, and jobs: it is always okay to take an audit and pluck what no longer serves you... and what you are no longer serving.

Teresa takes it one layer deeper. A lot of this is attachment, she says, and the habit of treating things as mine. People like to own things, and sometimes they try to own people. But people aren't meant to be owned. They come into your life for a season. Sometimes together, sometimes forever, sometimes just for a summer. Seen that way, an ending doesn't have to mean blame or failure. "It's just seasonal." Her image for it is a good one: you can't walk into summer wearing a winter jacket.

The questions Teresa asks herself

Kimberly asks for something practical: what does Teresa ask herself when she's deciding whether it's time to move on?

The first warning sign is effort in the wrong place. When she catches herself constantly trying to resurrect excitement about something, she knows it isn't genuine anymore. From there, she checks a few things:

Am I forcing myself to feel connected or passionate about this? Am I choosing to stay in conflict, or in something that drains me? Have I been honest with the person, the people, or the place about how I feel?

That last one matters, because sometimes the answer isn't to leave. Maybe there are unmet needs or new expectations that simply haven't been said. She'll try that conversation first and see whether the relationship can change into something fruitful again. If the answer is no, then that is her answer.

Kimberly hears it as clarity that comes from getting in touch with how you feel and how you want to feel. For her, that means getting still and getting quiet. Teresa's addition: get by the water, too.

Relief means release

Then Teresa offers the test that stays with you. When you imagine releasing it, do you feel relief?

"Sometimes the relief still comes with a bit of grief, but is there a sense of real genuine relief? Then to me, relief means release."

Kimberly connects it to the day Teresa put her furniture up on Facebook Marketplace and sold it, before she even had replacements lined up. Her family thought she'd lost her mind as strangers showed up to haul it away. But Kimberly gets it. She greets her house every day and thanks it for sheltering her, and she doesn't want to sit on something that makes her grumpy. She would rather sit on the floor than bring frustration into her home and let it settle in. "I have outgrown all the negative energy," she says, "and I don't want it anymore."

Outgrown doesn't mean it was bad

Teresa closes with the reframe that makes all of this easier to live with. Outgrowing something doesn't mean it was wrong. It may have been exactly right for the person who chose it. You just aren't that person anymore. She lists her own changes: she's not 35, she's not single, she's heading toward an empty nest. Every season asks something different, and being honest about that is how she gets clear on what she wants, what she doesn't, and what she has outgrown.

She points to Marie Kondo, who thanks each item that served her before releasing it with joy. Sell it, give it away, but let it go. Open and close doors.

Kimberly leaves listeners with one question to sit with: what are you ready to release, so you can make room for something else?

About the Coach

Teresa Anderson is a licensed therapist, a certified Live Life Fully coach, and the author of The Table, a book about transforming stories of pain into purpose, available in the Live Life Fully shop at llfully.com. Learn more or book a complimentary strategy session with Teresa at llfully.com/teresa-anderson.

A certified Live Life Fully coach can help you take the next step, together. Book your complimentary strategy session at llfully.com.