When Letting Go Is an Act of Self Care

Right now, as I write this, there are chainsaws outside my window. A small team is working through a plantation of trees on our Canterbury Foothills property, trees that were compromised, leaning, weakened, and had been causing us quiet concern for the past two years. Watching them come down, I couldn't help but think about how often we do the same thing in our own lives, hold on to things long past the point they stopped serving us, waiting to see if they'll make it through the next storm. Sometimes the most caring thing you can do, for yourself, is make the call.

A couple of years ago, we lost forty to fifty trees in one big windstorm. Just like that. My husband has spent the time since then ringing and splitting the lot, which is as much work as it sounds, and he absolutely deserves his life back.

But the ones that fell weren't the whole problem. It was the ones left standing that were the concern. Every Norwest season since (dry, warm strong winds from Australia), we've metaphorically held our breath wondering which ones might be next.

So, we made a call. And now, listening to the hum of chainsaws from my desk, I keep thinking about how much this mirrors where a lot of us find ourselves in midlife.

At some point you stop waiting to see what survives the next storm. You start making decisions about what actually needs to go.

It might be a friendship that's run its course, where you've both changed and there's no longer much left holding it together. A work environment that was fine for who you were ten years ago but doesn't fit anymore. A relationship dynamic you've been managing around rather than addressing. Something you've been putting up with because it felt easier than dealing with it.

None of that makes you a bad person. It just makes you someone who's paying attention.

The decision we made about our trees wasn't made lightly or quickly; we'd been sitting with it for a while. And I think that's often how it goes with the harder decisions in life too. You know for a while before you act. And when you finally do, there's this mix of relief and something that almost feels like grief, even when you know it was the right call.

What we as women don't often talk about is what that ongoing holding-on actually costs you. When we carry something that's become a source of low-grade dread, a relationship that's lost its footing, a situation we keep managing around, our nervous system treats it as an ongoing threat. It doesn't switch off between episodes. That quiet vigilance, the bracing, the wondering, the half-conscious waiting for the next difficult moment, is exhausting in a way that's hard to name because it's so constant. It just becomes the background noise of your life.

And it takes up space in your head that belongs to other things. The mental load of holding on to what no longer fits is real. Women often describe the aftermath of finally letting something go as a surprising mental spaciousness - like a browser with too many tabs finally closed.

Thoughts feel clearer. Decisions come more easily. You have energy for things that had quietly slipped away. That's not a small thing. That's your capacity returning to you.

If you feel relief after letting something go, that's not callousness. That's your nervous system recognising that the threat has passed. You're allowed to feel that without guilt.

What I didn't fully appreciate was how fabulous the view now is. With those trees gone, we can see the foothills properly for the first time. It's beautiful and fills my cup.

When we head into Norwest season again (September/October) we'll be doing so without that low-level dread we've had for the past two years.

Sometimes clearing something out, even something that was once good, even something you valued, is just what needs to happen so you can move forward without bracing for the next hit.

The foothills were always there. You just needed to clear what was blocking them.

Transforming Midlife - May 2026