A Ritual For Cleaning Out Your Desk At Your Old Job
Part of an ongoing series of ritual design sprints to imbue my own work-life with meaning and purpose. These are descriptions, not prescriptions. Utilize, customize, and remix these if you’re not sure where to start when crafting your own.
Losing a job sucks, whether you liked working there or not.
So what can you do to leave feeling grounded in your values, feeling good not necessarily about leaving but about HOW you left? What can you do to help process the inevitable hurt, confusion, anxiety, and fear, so that you might move forward without excess emotional baggage that won’t serve you?
Doing this ritual didn’t magically make up for a sudden lack of health benefits. But it did allow me to come to terms with the reality of what was happening, to be present to the emotions that arose, and to put a little bit more love and positivity out into the world, even at a difficult time.
Past/Remember
Even if the meter’s running on the car downstairs, take a moment before you dive straight in.
Stand and face your desk, relax your shoulders, think of one good memory from your time working at this desk, hold it in your mind, and allow yourself, maybe, to smile.
Then, take a "before" pic.
2. Present/Clear
Time to clean. Outer cleaning helps with inner cleaning, so be thorough.
Bring headphones. Listen to good music. Maybe something new?
Inevitably, it might occur to you: “Not my problem, the next person can deal with this.” Remember in those moments the karmic value of leaving things better than you found them.
3. Their Future/Bless
Leave a handwritten note and some presents for whoever will take over your desk. I chose objects that symbolized my hopes for them, which I then described in my note.
- Stress ball
- 2 candles
- Cute succulent pot
- A pretty stone
- Thank you notes from community members which hung on my bulletin board to reminded me of my purpose for working
4. Your Future/Release
Take an "after" pic.
Flip back and forth between the before and after, back and forth, sensing the movement of time, sensing the beauty of impermanence, sensing the reality of this change.
Then delete both pics. Make space for what's ahead.