Transformative Goodbyes

Dear soft hearted loves,

I’m leaving a clinic I love and goodbyes are hard. This one is especially hard because I love so many of the patients I serve and coworkers. I’ve created bonds and relationships with one of my dearest friends at the clinic and developed trusting, therapuetic alliances with those I serve. Leaving this job does not mean I’m leaving the patients, but rather transferring to something I can sustain as a highly sensitive healer.

I’ve consulted with trauma recovery experts and developed a plan to say goodbye over the course of three months. I began recording inner child healing meditations and upping my blog game to create a connection between them and myself even when we can no longer work together in treatment. I have worked tirelessly the last three months to let them know they are seen and that our thread of connection can continue within themselves if that’s what serves them. Still, goodbyes are hard. Sometimes goodbyes can bring up memories from losing a loved one or perhaps they bring up the abandonment of a friend leaving or choosing another friend. For some they can bring up a profound sense of aloneness. For some folx goodbyes can feel angry, irritable, or confusing. All feelings are welcome here.

Please send compassionate understanding and validation around feelings that arise. Whether you are saying goodbye to a chapter in your life, an old business, or a lover, please please please be gentle with yourself. Let’s send even more gentleness to these healing parts of you.

In this goodbye where I’m transitioning from a clinic to something else I am creating special transitional items to symbolize the goodbye with anyone who would like it. For some this can be a special journal and for others it can be a simple picture together. What has made a goodbye better for you?

We can also highlight the gratitudes from our time together. For example, there are people I have yet to meet in person but who did such transformative inner work in our time together. Wow! Can we just sit with that for a minute. We can acknowledge the feelings that arise with goodbyes, because they sure are hard, and we can invite thanks to whatever it did for us in that time together.

A friend and trauma recovery genius once told me that when someone comes to mind after a goodbye she likes to think they are thinking of her at that same very time. May you cross my mind and I cross yours.

Goodbye to those where our work has come to an end. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your journey and for being a part of mine.

With kindness,

Dr. Joharchi