Closing cycles: the essential key to moving forward with ease

Today I want to talk to you about an important topic that we don’t always give the attention it deserves: the need to close cycles in order to move forward more lightly.

Talking about grief is often uncomfortable because many people associate it solely with death and pain. But no, grief is much more than that. Sometimes it hides behind a change of job, a move, a new beginning that, although desired, involves leaving something behind. Most of these griefs are not recognized. They are not named. And yet they profoundly mark our ability to be present and available for the new.

Even when it comes to happy situations, desired and chosen decisions, something dies so that something new can be born.

Every step forward also involves leaving something behind.

And that “leaving behind” is not always dramatic or obvious: sometimes it is small things that lose their place, leaving a mark on us without us paying attention to them.

Starting a new and exciting job means, for those who leave, letting go of the bond with the previous team, the shared codes, the security of the familiar. And for those who stay, it means rebuilding their internal balance, taking on new tasks, reorganizing their affections. The same thing happens when a project ends, when a stage in the company closes, or when the management changes.

It also happens on a personal level: moving in with your partner—as wonderful as that moment may be—means giving up the intimacy of living alone, the silences you choose, the personal rituals that no longer fit into shared life. The arrival of a child transforms the bond between a couple. Moving cuts invisible roots. Getting older doesn’t just add experiences: it also means saying goodbye to who we no longer are.

Even choosing personal growth means leaving
behind previous versions of ourselves.

However, we live in a culture that pushes us to move quickly from one screen to the next, to adapt with agility without looking back. And what we don’t look at accumulates. What we don’t name hurts in silence. Learning to consciously close cycles is not an emotional luxury, it is a vital necessity. Because every external movement inevitably triggers an internal movement.

But… are we really aware of what stirs within us when something changes? Do we give ourselves permission to feel what is moving, or do we pass over it without stopping to look?

Grief—even the most subtle or everyday kind—awakens complex emotions. Sometimes we ignore them, other times we minimize or rationalize them so we don’t feel “vulnerable” or “unprofessional.” But those emotions don’t go away. They remain there, beneath the surface, asking to be acknowledged.

Grief: an emotional compass for what ends

Doctor in psychiatry Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a pioneer in the study of grief, proposed a model that describes the emotional stages we go through when we face a loss or significant change.

Although originally conceived in the context of terminal illness, over time it has been shown that these stages also apply to many other types of transitions and endings:

• Denial: This isn’t happening.
• Anger: Why me? It’s not fair!
• Bargaining: If I do this or that, maybe everything will go back to the way it was before.
• Sadness: I don’t want this to end. I won’t be able to get over it.
• Acceptance: This has happened. And I can move on.

These are not linear or orderly phases. Not everyone experiences them in the same way or in the same order. But understanding them helps us to name what we are feeling and, above all, to legitimize the internal process that occurs when something changes on the outside.

How many times do we move on without really closing the previous chapter?

Without realizing it, we accumulate pending goodbyes, undigested decisions, unexpressed words, stages that we leave behind but have not finished letting go of.
And even though life goes on, something in us stays behind, stuck, immobile.

What if the real weight we carry is not so much the pace of the new, but everything that was left unfinished from the past?

We find it difficult to talk about endings. We prefer to focus on beginnings. We live in a culture that pushes us to move forward, adapt, and perform without looking back. But what is not closed lingers. What is not honored becomes entrenched. And that has real consequences: lack of energy, unresolved conflicts, emotions that explode where they don’t belong.

The art of closure, to free yourself and move forward.

Closing a cycle is not emotional weakness, nor is it something reserved for great losses. It is a profound way of caring for our mental health, the quality of our relationships, and the clarity with which we inhabit the present.

Closing is not forgetting. Closing is honoring what has been lived, giving it a place, and allowing energy to flow again. Sometimes closure is intimate, like writing a letter that will never be sent. Other times it is shared, like a conversation, a ceremony, or a symbolic gesture.

Last year, I was contacted by a CFO who had been working at a company for over 30 years. She was about to retire and felt the need to close her working life at the organization. Not only for herself—she could have worked through this grief on her own—but above all for her team, whom she wanted to accompany through a careful and conscious transition.

As a professional, it was a very meaningful experience for me. I had the honor of facilitating a team-building day focused on that farewell, and of being a privileged witness to a deeply moving encounter.

Through gratitude practices, symbolic exercises, and spaces for emotional expression and mutual recognition, the team was able to say what needed to be said, give thanks, close the chapter, and let go.

For her, it was a true rite of passage: not an empty ending, but the culmination of a journey. For her team, it was also essential: closing that chapter allowed them to welcome the new leader with renewed energy, without stagnant nostalgia, ready to begin a new cycle with presence and openness.

Where there is no closure, there is no beginning.

And you, what do you need to close? You may be carrying around unmade decisions, unsaid words, relationships that dissolved without explanation. Your team may have gone through changes that have not been fully metabolized.

Unfinished business does not disappear: it accumulates.

👉 At the organizational level, if you lead a team, consider offering spaces for closure when there are important transitions: a departure, a change in leadership, a project that ends. These are powerful opportunities for healing and cohesion.

👉 On a personal level, if you feel that you are carrying too much of what was, and you find it difficult to inhabit what is, perhaps the time has come to give yourself the space to close. To look ahead, process, say goodbye… and move on.

In both cases, I can accompany you. As a facilitator and team coach, I help you close cycles in the organization, assimilate change, and boost the energy of a new beginning. From a Gestalt and systemic perspective, in a more intimate process, I can accompany you in integrating your past experiences to regain energy, clarity, and motivation to face the future.

Closing is not losing. Closing is letting go of what you have experienced with gratitude to make room for what is to come. And if you want to do it with support, I am here.