How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

by Emily P. Freeman

the path behind me, God’s presence and the presence of others with me, and the hopeful pictures still emerged as arrows, however dim.

“Faith is not so much about a creedal belief but living out of the experience of who God is as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.”

“When Jesus wanted to explain to his followers what his death would mean, he didn’t give them a theory. He gave them a meal.”

“New life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.”8

Presence: Be present in the moment, to myself and to God with me. I am here and God is here; I am now and God is now. There’s nothing left to do, say, or fix today. There is only rest.

As you look back over the events, conversations, movements, and moments of the day, where did you notice the Light? Where might you have seen a glimpse of hope? A moment of gratitude? Name and notice them now.

Without judgment or agenda, simply notice how you feel as you review your day. Are you encouraged? Motivated? Exhausted? Relieved? Whatever the feeli...

Some images are just for the day; others can be carried with us for an extended period of time.

settle in where you are, offer a simple gratitude for it, and look ahead into tomorrow, trusting that whatever has emerged that you need will remain with you and whatever emerged that you don’t need will fall away into God’s care.

That is sometimes the reality of our endings, and certainly happened for a lot of us during 2020. No foreshadowing, no runway, no warning. Just regular life straight into an abrupt ending. For anyone who left or was left that year, for anyone who lost someone they loved that year, for anyone who was let go from a job or lost their home or moved away, the unformed endings just faded into our lives, without boundaries or markings. The endings we got were nothing like the endings we always imagined would be (if we imagined the endings at all).

We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, And the norms and notions of what “just is” Isn’t always justice.1

In this decision to leave our church, we were remaining mostly quiet. But in our silence, I realized we were communicating that there was peace, when in reality, there was none.

There is a difference between the peace that comes from doing the deeply right thing and the relief that comes from avoiding discomfort.

sometimes the only way to leave is to disappear, to walk away without explanation or conversation.

quiet isn’t always peace, but sometimes quiet is peace.

it’s worth exploring what leaving well looks like for you.

If you consider the rooms you’re in and you imagine a confrontation that might come as a result of your decision or the resistance you’ll likely get if they know you’ve changed your mind, it’s natural that you would begin to have a sense of fear and discomfort.

Fear and discomfort aren’t usually answers by themselves but are often arrows: important to pay attention to, but it’s also best to ask yourself what they’re pointing to. At first, it helps to consider them as yellow flags meant to slow you down rather than assume they are red flags every time.

The question to discern is if the fear and discomfort are pointing to a wall (Don’t go this way), a window (Here’s something that’s possible), a mirror (This is a time for self-reflection), or a door (Yeah, it’s time to go).

It’s possible to stay in a room too long or to rush out too fast because we’re paying attention to a narrow set of cues. Our definition of peace, in this case, means the absence of fear or anxiety. True peace is not the absence of discomfort or conflict. True peace is an inner okay-ness and wholeness. True peace is an alignment with what we know and what we do, living in congruence with our personal core values, our true identity, the common good, and our life with God.

doesn’t mean leaving was the right thing to do or that we were actually in any danger. It just means our nervous system felt relieved when we left.

“Being able to tell the difference between what is the relief that comes from my avoidance and what is actually peace is a whole life’s work. . . . They will show up differently if you hold them side by side.

Stress is not bad for you; being stuck is bad for you.”3 We’re meant to move in and out of stress, not to stay stuck in a room of perceived safety. We’re meant to move to the healthy, human rhythm of leaving rooms and finding new ones.

the word translated into English as peace is “shalom.” It means to make restitution and to restore. It also implies an overall sense of wholeness or completeness, to be full of well-being. This is the kind of peace we long for, the kind that is an outcome of being deeply okay, not necessarily because all is well without but because all is well within. This is an inner kind of peace, an inner knowing and receiving peace with God and a desire to impart peace in the world.

there is an inner knowing that the wind cannot touch, the fire cannot burn, the waters cannot overcome. There is a solid, still place deep within us where we dwell as whole. And from that place we can discern if our fear is a healthy fear, a result of wisdom. Or if our fear is a dysfunctional fear, a result of avoidance.

“Is this true peace or is it the relief that comes from avoidance?”

For most of us, most of the time, we get one without the other. And when we do, the gap between readiness and timeliness shows up as nerves, anticipation, sometimes excitement and joy, other times fear and grief. We may confuse our lack of feeling ready with the reality of it being time. Or we think it must not be time simply because we don’t feel ready. Sometimes this is what keeps us in rooms. We feel tension when we’re ready to go but it isn’t yet time. And we often experience fear when it’s time to go but we don’t feel ready.

When you’re ready but it isn’t time, add for now. When it’s time but you’re not ready, add let go.

That’s not to say we’ll be here forever. It’s to say we’re here for now, so let’s make a place for the work we feel compelled to do.

it’s important to notice and to name what’s here, what has gone before, and what I hope for later.

Home isn’t something we have to wait for. Home is a place we can make—even as we carry questions, even when we don’t feel ready, even as we leave beloved rooms, even while we stand in various hallways.

Here’s to not looking too far into the future or living too far in the past. Here’s to grieving and celebrating and grieving again. Here’s to experiencing the life of Christ in new and unexpected ways. Here’s to a longer table, even if, for now, it’s only in your heart.

Another thing we must leave behind is regret, all of our Why-did-I’s and Why-didn’t-I’s. Why did I get so caught up in that conversation? Why was I compelled to tell the truth, truth, truth? Why couldn’t I remain in the background and just let them think what they will? Why didn’t I speak up, speak out, speak more often? Why didn’t I tell them what I really thought sooner? How could I have let that go on for so long? If you felt too weepy, too chatty, too stoic, too something other than what you imagine you should have been, this you can leave behind.

You have to leave behind the parts that happened when you weren’t in the room, the conversations they had about you and around you as the thing you once loved crumbled slowly to the ground, an emperor with no clothes dancing through the rubble.

In the same way we bring our six-year-old self and our sixteen-year-old self to the age we currently are, we also carry every name we’ve ever had, whether that name was gently bestowed as a gift of love, ceremoniously given after years of hard work, or critically slung as a cruel insult, here we are, named and present, making every life decision through the lenses we’ve been wearing for decades, carrying them into all of our rooms. No matter if our leaving is anticipated, forced, or chosen, the names we had in the rooms we’ve occupied have weight and merit. Part of working for closure is recognizing those names and sometimes letting them go.

As a result of my time in that room, in what ways have I become more confident? How has my heart expanded because of my experience there? What did I learn that I would have had difficulty learning any other way?

We also bring with us (and this one is less desirable but no less valuable) the knowledge of what not to do in the next room we enter. Because of course we know there’s a lot to learn from the mentors, skilled teachers, compassionate companions, and loyal friends we meet in the rooms of our lives. As it turns out, you can also learn a lot from a person who has done it poorly. You can learn a lot about how not to be, what not to say, and what bad leadership looks like.

Sometimes the things we bring are not necessarily things we want to bring. But bring them we must. If we were hurt, if our heart was broken, if a room caused pain we cannot reverse, we’ll bring the memory and we’ll bring the scar.

But there’s one thing no one can take from us, one thing we will never leave behind, one thing that is not confined to any past room, current hallway, or future room—that is the person we have become and are becoming.

We are prone to want to count the blessings, to name the lessons, and to share all the ways our pain has been used for good. Maybe there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that desire, but it can keep us from grieving what deserves grief.

to be loved, to be secure, and to belong.

the Lord shall take you step by step and supply all your needs.

For anyone who is trying to come to terms with a sudden and tragic ending, it may feel like standing in a room you were content to stay in forever that either figuratively or literally burned to the ground around you. The lack of available closure can be the thing that keeps you stuck forever.

one of the gifts we can give to those around us is to try to find the words, however imperfect. And one of the phrases that has helped me at an ending is declaring that the ending does not get to define the whole story.

Sometimes a cloud is just a cloud. But that terrible ending doesn’t get to have the whole say.

“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” God shifts our eyes from a plan we hope for to a person we can hope in.

When things end, our heart might break, especially when the ending is unexpected, unfair, or unexplainable. The ending is a part, but it isn’t the whole. Don’t let the ending steal the narrative.

Where have you seen God along the way?

Just because something ended doesn’t mean there was closure. Take a little time to be silent and to be still. To be watchful. To bear witness. If you can’t yet see a new spark, a small shoot, or the start of a new thing, take heart. Let the lost things be lost. Ask for what you need to know. Remain open to seeing things in ways you might not expect. If nothing comes, be gentle with yourself. We don’t stop living just because we’re unsure. We continue on, trusting in God, as we simply do our next right thing in love.

the opposite of people-pleasing is leadership.