Through an unfortunate set of events, my plans fell apart to see Chris Stapleton at the Bridgeway Arena in Nashville. (Laryngitis Chris… really?) The concert promoters declined to refund the three tickets I purchased because the event was being rescheduled for six weeks later in the same location. My problem was that I found out about the cancelled concert while waiting at LAX for a flight from California to Nashville. It was too late for me to reschedule the trip and Ticketmaster has designed their legal terms to completely cover themselves (buyer beware of that company). I ended up selling off two of the tickets at a huge loss and giving the third one to my daughter who lives 40 minutes outside of Nashville.
When I talked with her after the rescheduled concert to see how it went, I asked if Stapleton had performed his song “Nashville, Tennessee”. Katelyn hadn’t been following his music, so she was unaware of his repertoire. After I played her the song, she said she didn’t remember him singing that one at the concert. At first, I was a little surprised. Why wouldn’t you sing “Nashville, Tennessee” at a concert in Nashville, Tennessee? Then I started thinking through the lyrics. It’s a break-up song. Like a song where the end of a romantic relationship is explained in terms of what went wrong and why they’re happy to see it come to an end, Stapleton’s Nashville song is about leaving that city and moving on.
The chorus of the song says, “So long Nashville Tennessee, you can’t have what’s left of me, and as far as I can tell, it’s high time I wished you well.” Listening to the song since my conversation with Katelyn, has prompted some thoughts that I think would be helpful for you concerning the necessity of leaving.
Before you start expecting that I’m going to talk about leaving relationships, let me quickly point to the three other necessary leavings. I’ll explore leaving places, perspectives and patterns and then speak to the expected fourth… people.
Leaving Places
Stapleton’s song focused on a place, so let’s start there. You’ve probably had the experience where people have overstayed their welcome. It was nice when they arrived but at some point, the reason for them being there ran out. As much as you try to be okay with them staying, you fight the daily urge to ask, “When was it you were planning to leave?”
Have you been in a place (job, social group, committee, volunteer board or even a city) where your reason for being there ran out? The initial motivations for being in that place were likely good, but as with all things in life, it’s inevitable that changes in you or the place itself will work to misalign your reasons for staying there. Most of us overstay our time in places like I’ve mentioned because we dread the discomfort change will bring, or perhaps because of a sense of loyalty to the employer or the cause we’ve joined.
On one side, it would be important to remember that by staying in a place out of obligation, you may be preventing someone with fresh motivations, ideas, and energy from stepping into your vacancy. There are benefits to leaving just in that fact. On the other side, you would do well to consider the toll that is being taken on your sense of meaning, purpose, and other facets of your psychological health by staying in places that are no longer connected to compelling reasons.
Leaving Perspectives
Mary Engelbreit wrote, “If you don’t like something, change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.” The simple truth is: if you want to see things differently, you must leave the way you see them now. This happens frequently in arguments. The best and most effective path for two people to take in resolving a conflict is to shift their position enough to see the other person’s perspective. We don’t often take that path however, because we’re too busy building a case that shows the correctness of our position while the other person is doing the same for theirs.
The old expression “digging in my heels” means that I’m fixing my beliefs and thinking on where I am and creating the conditions that will make it hard for others to move me away from them. Your ability to make a perspective shift is vital for healthy cognitive development, and from a psychological viewpoint, it is directly linked to social competence and self-esteem.
The most important principle in making a perspective shift is your decision to leave how you have viewed and labeled, and the conclusions you’ve reached about a specific event, group, or individual. Leaving doesn’t mean you have to entirely reject perspectives you’ve held in the past; it simply means that you are willing to move away from the stream of information, opinions and views that only serve to fortify what you already believe.
Leaving Patterns
Habits are formed by the repetition of actions day after day until they become automated. Most are formed naturally like the automated behaviors you use when driving a car. You didn’t have to specifically think about turning on your left blinker as you came to an intersection where your GPS instructed you to make a turn (if you indeed use that part of your car’s capabilities), you did it automatically.
Among those naturally formed habits are negative patterns of behavior like social avoidance, procrastination, automatic defensiveness, making excuses, and neglect of exercise and healthy eating. These patterns are not easy to stop, but they can be changed. In most cases, negative patterns can be replaced by better habits. It takes you giving an honest look at what automated behaviors are helping and which are not, and then deciding to leave the unhelpful ones behind. Stapleton’s words ring true here in this look at negative patterns, “you can’t have what’s left of me, and as far as I can tell it’s high time I wished you well…”
The best advice in this area is to take them on one at a time. With enough focus and the replacement of poor patterns with better ones, you’ll soon be leaving (poor) patterns behind for good.
Leaving People
While I’m not one for recommending ending relationships, there are times when it’s necessary to leave those that are toxic, manipulative, and unsafe. The more servant-natured and empathetic you are, the more likely you’ll be to stay in situations of ongoing stress and activities that others might characterize as emotional abuse. I’m suggesting that the perspective of others on your relationships may be different than yours because as a normal human, you will have likely developed some complex rationalizations for the conduct of unsafe people. You may have convinced yourself that you are somehow responsible to endure toxic interactions in order to carry out an important cause. You may have also bought into the belief that you are responsible to help change the unsafe people.
Ask other people (probably not those closest to you like a spouse or partner) to weigh in on the interactions you have with employers, managers, co-workers, friends, or family members. Pay attention to the way they perceive and describe those relationships and then ask yourself one vitally important question: “What would I advise a person I cared deeply about to do if they were experiencing these same relational circumstances?” If your advice would be for them to distance themselves, take your own advice and leave toxic, manipulative, and unsafe people behind.
Final thoughts
I’m sure there are other things worth leaving. You can add your ideas on that in the comments section. The central point here is that leaving is a necessary part of life and better (or at the very least different) places, perspectives, patterns, and people wait for you on the path that leads away from what you’ve left behind.
P.S. Also, if you’re from Nashville, I’m sorry that Chris broke up with your town.