Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Before the New Year Begins, Let Something End | A Christmas Reflection EP 707 w/ John R. Miles
25 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Coming up next on Passion Struck. Most of us will spend the next few days thinking about what we want to begin. New habits, new intentions, a new version of ourselves.
Chapter 2: What does it mean to let something end before the new year?
But Christmas sits somewhere else entirely. It's not a starting line. It's a threshold. And sometimes before anything new can take root, something old needs permission to end. quietly, privately, with compassion. So tonight, instead of asking what you're going to carry forward into the new year, I want to ask you a different question. What are you finally allowed to put down?
Welcome to Passion Struck. I'm your host, John Miles. This is the show where we explore the art of human flourishing and what it truly means to live like it matters.
Each week, I sit down with change makers, creators, scientists, and everyday heroes to decode the human experience and uncover the tools that help us lead with meaning, heal what hurts, and pursue the fullest expression of who we're capable of becoming.
Whether you're designing your future, developing as a leader, or seeking deeper alignment in your life, this show is your invitation to grow with purpose and act with intention. Because the secret to a life of deep purpose, connection, and impact is choosing to live like you matter. Hey friends, welcome to Passion Struck. This is episode 707 and it's Christmas Day.
We've spent the last four weeks walking together through the season of becoming. That strange, tender stretch between who we've been and who we're allowed to become. We've reawakened possibility. we found courage in discomfort. We remembered how to matter, really matter, to the people who matter most. And now, here we are. The calendar is about to turn. The tree is still up.
The world is soft and away.
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Chapter 3: How can gentle endings lead to personal transformation?
It won't be tomorrow. Before we talk about resolutions, Before we name what we want to start, I want to name something quieter and more honest. Transformation isn't about addition.
Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is subtraction, not in a harsh or self-critical way, not by shaming ourselves into change, but by choosing gently, deliberately, lovingly to lay down something that no longer deserves to travel with us. Every one of us is carrying at least one thing that has outlived its purpose. Not because we're broken, but because at one point it kept us safe.
Safety, though, is not the same thing as freedom. And tonight, Christmas night, the world gives us a rare permission slip. We're allowed to outgrow what once protected us. without having to hate it first. Because the space it leaves behind is where imagination returns. It's where flow begins to move. It's where the person you're becoming finally has room to breathe.
So today, I'm not here to hand you a list of things to fix. I'm here to invite you to do one small, brave, private thing while the year is still soft. Choose something to end. Not because it's bad, but because it's finished. And when you do, you're not closing a chapter. You're making space for the next one to arrive whole.
And the reason this matters is because letting something end rarely happens in a single decision. It happens in moments, usually quiet ones, where we finally see what we're still carrying and what it's quietly costing us. I didn't learn that from a book. I learned it in a moment that didn't look like an ending at all but changed what I carried from that day forward. Let me take you there.
Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. We've all felt it, that subtle drag, the way certain thoughts, certain stories, certain old ways of being show up again and again, like guests who were invited once but never quite left. We tell ourselves they're harmless.
They're just background noise, part of who we are, but they're not neutral. They cost something, and the cost isn't always loud. It's quiet, gradual, almost invisible. Until one day you realize the space inside you feels smaller than it used to. When we carry things that have outlived their purpose, we don't just hold on to the past. We hold on to a version of ourselves that no longer fits.
And that version has rules, expectations. Limits, it insists we still obey. So we keep apologizing for taking up space. We keep waiting for permission to rest. We keep measuring our worth by how useful we are, how productive, how unflinching. We keep believing that if we soften even a little, something will break.
And slowly, the life we're actually living starts to feel like a rehearsal instead of the real thing. Relationships feel at first. We show up, but part of us is still guarding something old, a hurt we haven't released, a story we haven't unwritten, a fear we haven't laid down. That guardedness creates distance, even when we're in the same room. Conversations stay surface level.
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Chapter 4: What is the cost of carrying old stories and habits?
Take the guesswork out of pure, great-tasting water with this exclusive offer now at Aquatru.com. That's A-Q-U-A-T-R-U dot com using code PASSIONSTRUCK. You're listening to Passion Struck on the Passion Struck Network. Welcome back. We've been reflecting on the quiet cost of carrying what's finished, the way it thins our presence, shrinks our joy, and quietly limits what's still possible.
And we landed on a question worth sitting with. What happens? What really happens when we finally choose to set something down? Here's the part we rarely talk about. Letting something go doesn't immediately make life easier. It makes life lighter. And there's a difference. Ease comes later. Lightness comes first. It arrives as a subtle shift. Not fireworks. Not certainty.
Just a sense that you're no longer bracing in the same way. When something that's finished is finally set down, the nervous system notices before the mind does. Breath deepens. The body softens just a fraction. Shoulders drop without being told to. Nothing dramatic has changed. And yet, something essential has. Space returns. And space is where becoming actually begins.
When we stop carrying what no longer belongs to us, attention frees up, energy redistributes, presence becomes less effortful. You're no longer living on top of the moment, trying to manage it, survive it, get through it. You're inside it. That's why letting go so often feels like coming back to yourself.
Not to an older version, not to a simpler one, but to the version that existed before everything felt so tightly managed. This is where imagination starts to move again. Not imagination as fantasy or escape, imagination as possibility. The quiet sense that life could be approached differently. that there might be more than one way forward, that you don't have to solve everything tonight.
When we're weighed down by old stories and unfinished emotional business, imagination narrows. We repeat what we know, even when it no longer works. But when space opens, something else becomes available. Choice, not forced choice. not dramatic reinvention, just the freedom to respond instead of react. Flow begins here, and flow isn't about intensity or peak performance. It's about alignment.
It's what happens when effort and resistance are no longer fighting each other, when you're not dragging yesterday's weight into today's decisions. When attention is no longer split between what's happening and what you're still carrying, you can feel this most clearly in relationships. When you let go of an old resentment, you listen differently.
When you release a self-story about being too much or not enough, you show up honestly. When you stop proving your worth through usefulness, presence becomes a gift instead of a transaction. You're not performing closeness you're inhabiting it, and something else beautiful happens. When you stop carrying what's finished, you stop asking the future to compensate for the past.
You're no longer waiting for the next milestone, the next validation, the next version of yourself to finally feel whole. You arrive as you are, lighter, clearer, less defended. That's why letting go isn't loss. It's recovery. You recover energy that's been tied up in vigilance. You recover attention that's been trapped in old loops.
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Chapter 5: How do we recognize what needs to be released?
It will. The question is how gently you're willing to allow that change to happen. And that's where we'll turn next. Here's where we usually go wrong. When we realize something needs to end, we tend to turn on ourselves. We make ultimatums. We demand clarity we don't have. We try to rip something out of our lives as if force will make the ending clean. But that kind of ending rarely frees us.
It just replaces one form of tension with another. Letting something end doesn't require aggression. It requires attention. Most of the things we need to release aren't holding on because we're weak. They're holding on because they were built to keep us safe. So the first step isn't deciding what to let go of. It's recognizing why it stayed for so long.
That old story about needing to prove yourself, it helped you survive a season where approval mattered. That habit of staying guarded, it protected you from disappointment when trust felt risky. That belief that rest had to be earned, it kept you moving when stopping didn't feel possible. None of these deserve condemnation. They deserve acknowledgement.
So instead of asking, how do I get rid of this? Try a different question. What did this protect me from? Because gratitude is what allows something to loosen its grip. Once you've named that, the ending can begin and it begins quietly. You don't have to make a vow. You don't have to announce a new identity. You don't even have to know what replaces it yet. You only have to notice.
when the old pattern shows up again, and choose not to obey it automatically. That's it. The ending happens not in a single moment, but in a series of small refusals to keep carrying what's finished. You pause instead of pushing. You rest instead of proving. You tell the truth instead of rehearsing the old line.
At first, it can feel uncomfortable, like stepping into space before you're sure the floor is solid. That discomfort doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. It means you're not numbing it anymore. That is what a gentle ending feels like. No drama, no collapse. Just a growing sense that you don't need to live that way anymore. And there will be days when you pick that weight back up.
That doesn't mean the ending failed. It means you're human. Endings don't require perfection. They require return. Each time you notice the old story and choose differently, even slightly, the ending deepens. The nervous system learns something new. The body learns it's safe to soften. The mind learns that change doesn't have to be violent to be real.
And eventually, one day you'll realize you haven't thought about that old weight in a while. Not because you forced it away, but because it no longer fits in your hands. That's when you know the ending has taken hold. Not as a loss, but as a release.
Before we close, I want to leave you with a moment, something you can return to tonight or tomorrow or anytime you feel the weight starting to creep back in. And that's where we'll finish. So here we are, Christmas night. The lights are low. The year is almost finished.
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