Clean Leaving
How to Leave a job (More) Baggage-Free
A Workshop for people in Higher Education (or leaving academia)
Higher Education is in crisis. It’s changing dramatically and many of us are being forced to leave our positions (even tenured ones) or leave Academia completely.
That brings up A. LOT. OF. S*&T.
This Workshop is designed to support you in
BEING with your process,
moving through it, and
orienting towards what is next.
We will hold space for the complex responses to Leaving our university job and/or career, explore what it means for each of us to “Leave Cleanly,” and re-orient towards what’s next in a way that honors where we’ve been, where we are, and where we want to go.
Captions available here. I talk about what the Clean Leaving Program offers and why it’s useful for those in Higher Education who are switching jobs or careers.
Register by August 13, 2025.
Humans move through many cycles of
Joining,
Belonging,
and Leaving.*
But Leaving is the least attended to part of the cycle. If we don’t leave cleanly, we carry entanglements forward into our future joinings and belongings. That can limit possibility and complicate our future communities/professional lives.
*This approach is from Systemic Constellations.
What you’ll get
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Make some peace with these normal, human reactions.
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Create some space and perspective around them to allow for intentional choice and response.
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Help you build capacity to hold these reactions alongside possibility.
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Help you resource yourself and be in community with people in similar situations.
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Help you leave in a way that leaves some of the baggage behind. (More about this below)
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Help you vision what might be next or how you want to BE in the next phase of your life journey.
Leaving Cleanly with Integrity and Boundaries
Leaving Cleanly with Integrity and Boundaries
Through a combination of:
Group coaching and dialogue
Content from me
Expressive arts collage
Systemic constellation work
Mindfulness activities
We will help you move through your process at your pace while developing supports to help empower your choice and transformation.
Note: This workshop is not therapy or a job-search workshop. It is designed to support you in developing some tools to empower you in your process and develop community as you do so.
Why me? Because I’ve been there.
I’m in it too. I'm navigating my own leaving process with intention and ritual.
I’ve spent virtually my entire adult life in academia, including the MANY years earning my Master’s degree then my Doctorate. For the past twenty-plus years, I have served as the Director of the Gender & Women’s Studies Program at a regional state university.
Despite having tenure and being full professor, I was slated for lay off and my program closed. Unlike many, because faculty at my university are unionized, I have a “grace period” before I officially leave (which, honestly, is a mixed bag).
Prior to that, I’ve watched higher education face:
Declining enrollments
Attacks that erode the liberal arts
The corporitization of higher education
The impact of COVID on both enrollment and morale
Shifts to online pedagogy
Changes in WHO are students are and WHAT they need
Attacks on equity work
Impact of AI
And more. Through all this, I’ve watched the higher education climate and culture that I joined become almost unrecognizeable.
And then I was laid off and the program I devoted my life’s work to closed.
So I get it.
But alongside all that, I still love teaching college students. I still love my field of Gender & Women’s Studies. And I still believe college can be a magical time. I am also:
A trained transformational coach
A long-time mindfulness, somatics, and yoga practitioner
an Intersectional Feminist and Social Justice Advocate who believes in agency and empowerment, even amidst overwhelming systemic harm
A trained trauma-informed and healing-centered practitioner.
A Relational Facilitator
So I also have skills and approaches that have helped me navigate my own Leaving and healing process with resources and intentionality. I will be sharing these in this workshop so you have more support and can shape your own process.
Jennings Photo
What’s inside
A brief overview of Gathering 3. Captions available here.
Gathering 4
September 10. 2025 4-5:40 pm CDT via Zoom
How do we want to BE in our next job/career?
Even if this leaving is hard, what do we want for what is next and who do we want to BE in that journey?
We will return to expressive arts collage as we envision possibility. And we will set some intentions for our journey.
Leaving can be hard but when it is done cleanly, we can move to our next Joining and Belonging with a clearer heart and greater capacity.
Gathering 1
August 20, 2025, 4-5:30 pm CDT, via Zoom
Where are you in the leaving process? What is emerging for you as you navigate it?
We will gather, connect with one another, share a bit about our stories.
We will also resource ourselves, using mindfulness and expressive arts collage practice (don’t worry—no artistic skill needed!)
This session will softly move us into the journey together while establishing the ground of support we will need to help us move through the leaving process with integrity, resilience, and connection.
A brief overview of our second Gathering. Captions available here.
Gathering 2
August 27, 2025 4-5:30 pm CDT, via Zoom
Why is leaving so hard? It’s a common stage in human life but one that is least attended to. When we have not chosen to leave, or when conditions have forced that choice upon us, our feelings are often fraught.
This gathering will help us surface some of what is making it so challenging for us to leave. What are some ways we can hold our grief, anger, sadness, fear? What are some capacity building and resourcing supports, alongside some practical steps we will need to take?
We will engage in some reflective constellation work (again, no experience needed!) so we can become clearer on what is shaping our response to leaving and make more empowering choices around that process.
A brief overview of Gathering 1. Captions are available here.
Gathering 3
September 3, 2025 4-5:40 pm CDT via Zoom
When we leave a community or organization in fraught ways—if we are being forced to leave or if there have been lots of crises and politics and looming cuts for years (sound familiar?)—we likely have lots of feelings—even baggage—around that.
While that is understandable, we do not want to carry that forward into our next position/career.
In this gathering, we’ll do some reflective constellation work around:
What do we want to give back to the system as we leave it?
What belongs in the system, not with us?
This will help us leave the baggage with the system to which it belongs instead of being saddled with it as we move on.
A brief overview of our fourth Gathering. Captions are available here.
I will also send reflection prompts and materials between gatherings.
This workshop is for you if....
This workshop is for you if....
You are open & ready to work through your Leaving process.
You want to support yourself and others heal and grow.
You want to leave with clear boundaries and integrity.
You want to orient to whatever is next with hope and possibility.
This workshop may NOT be for you if….
You are deeply caught in anger, fear, and grief so much that you can’t yet work through it.
You can’t be present with others who want to see possibility and move forward.
You can’t be with the grief, fear, and rage others might be feeling.
You can’t attend the sessions live.
That is ALL OK if that is where you are. We all have our own processes. It’s just that other resources, such as therapy, career coaching, or other workshops may be more supportive for you at this time. Or you might find 1:1 coaching with me more helpful. You can book a discovery call here.
Sign up By August 13, 2025
When you register for the workshop, I will follow-up with a welcome message. As we approach the start date, I’ll send a note with specific information about how to join and what to bring to the first session.
My desire is to co-create with you a warm, welcoming, and creative space where we can work with some of our reactions to enable a clearer process for how we want to leave and an orientation toward what we want for what’s next. We will do this in community because there’s power in collective support and witnessing.
Choose your Registration
Community
$250
Supporter
$350
Supporter rate pays for cost of program.
I trust your YES. Once registered, there are no refunds.
Optional Add-On
1:1 Coaching session at a discounted price for Workshop participants. When you sign up or throughout the workshop, you can add-on 1:1 coaching sessions at a discounted rate of $100 per session..
Sustainer
$450
Sustainer rate pays for self and supports others.
✺ Frequently asked questions ✺
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Preferably yes. This is a group coaching program, so the community and discussion is key. I ask that you show up in service to your own growth as well as the collective support for co-participants.
If an emergency arises, talk with me.
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Because this workshop depends on the collective engagement and sharing, I don’t plan to record it. If you sign up and an emergency arises, talk with me.
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Don’t worry! No experience in either is necessary (nor is any artistic talent!) I will guide us through both modalities, which are really powerful ways of accessing what is often below the surface but is guiding us. Once we make it conscious, we can work with it more effectively.
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Hopefully yes! I invite you to complete this short inquiry to tell me more about what you would need to join a future offering so I can consider your needs when it is offered again.
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This series focuses on higher ed because of some of its unique aspects. But I know so many people in many industries are experiencing similar challenges.
I hope to offer this series again for different industries. I invite you to complete this short form to tell me a bit about your interest/needs so I can take that into account when planning the next offering of this program.
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No. This is not a job-searching workshop. We will talk more about our mindset and heart as we move through our modules.
Prospective employers will sense if you are really stuck in the past or caught in all the complex emotions of undigested leaving.
The more we can leave cleanly, the more we can apply for jobs and go to interviews with an open-heart and future-focused attitude, which will make us more appealing to prospective employers.
Questions?
Reach ouT to me at: bethberila@bethberila.com
©Clean Leaving 2025