Before the New Year Begins, Let Something End | A Christmas Reflection EP 707 w/ John R. Miles

Dec 25, 2025

This reflective episode encourages listeners to embrace gentle endings rather than rushing into new year resolutions. It highlights the importance of releasing old stories and habits that no longer serve us, exploring the emotional cost of carrying past burdens. The host shares a personal moment of recognizing how ambition acted as a weight, preventing openness to new possibilities. Finally, practical tips for practicing gentle endings, including a simple release ritual, offer a compassionate way to enter the new year.

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INSIGHT

Subtraction Enables True Transformation

Transformation often begins with subtraction rather than addition and making space matters more than piling on new habits.
Letting something end creates the room where imagination, flow, and renewal can return.

INSIGHT

Carried Weight Shrinks Inner Life

Carrying what has outlived its purpose slowly shrinks your inner life and narrows possibility without dramatic notice.
Adaptation to that weight masquerades as maturity while it actually reduces capacity for joy and presence.

ANECDOTE

A Personal Story Of Carrying Old Success Rules

John Miles recounts carrying an old story of needing to prove his worth that left him exhausted and joyless.
He realized that the story had taken up space so joy and curiosity had nowhere left to land.

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What if real transformation does not begin with what we add, but with what we finally allow to end?

In this deeply reflective Christmas Day solo episode of Passion Struck, Episode 707, John R. Miles invites listeners into the quiet, liminal space between the year that is closing and the life that is still taking shape. Rather than rushing toward resolutions, this episode explores the power of gentle endings and the release of old stories, habits, and self-protections that have outlived their purpose.

Drawing on psychology, lived experience, and the themes of The Season of Becoming, John unpacks the quiet cost of carrying what is finished, the unexpected beauty that emerges when we let go without violence to ourselves, and how gentleness creates the space where imagination, flow, and renewal can return.

This episode is not a call to fix yourself. It is an invitation to lay something down.

If you are entering the new year feeling tired, tender, or quietly ready for change, this episode offers a different starting point, one rooted in compassion, presence, and honest release.

Before the resolutions come the revelations, before the beginning, let something end.

Resources and Links

Check the full show notes here: https://passionstruck.com/before-the-new-year-begins-let-something-end/

All links gathered here (books, Substack, YouTube, community):

https://linktr.ee/John_R_Miles

A Gentle Ending Practice

Reflection prompts, a simple release ritual, and space to name what is ready to rest. Designed to help you enter the new year lighter, clearer, and more present.

Download the free Companion Workbook at: https://www.theignitedlife.net/p/let-something-end-before-the-year

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Disclaimer

The Passion Struck podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed are those of John R. Miles and do not necessarily reflect those of Passion Struck or its affiliates. This podcast is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment from a licensed physician, therapist, or other qualified professional.

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