Release and Rise: Embracing Change through Letting Go

BRAFE.SPACE GOES EEDEN FOR A BRAFE TUESDAY EXPERIENCE

Usually, we would hold our monthly BRAFE Tuesdays here in our community living room at Ohlauer Straße. This time, however, we moved - and traveled the idea, intention, and energy of an authentic and vulnerable sharing round among an intimate group of change makers.

The space we arrived at couldn’t be more fitting at any perceivable point of your senses. The eeden in Hamburg breathes warmth, connection, and humanity. Jessica, one of our brafe.space entrepreneurs, co-founder of eeden Hamburg, has invited us together with her team - and so here we were in this beauty of a space that is soaked with the energy of visioning a better world by empowering profound feminist connections.

Eeden is a feminist co-creation space and an effective, interdisciplinary network that unites different people from art, design, culture, music, science, politics, media, and business in the vision of creating a more just, sustainable, and thus happier future for all of us. They connect different communities, experts, and companies and create meeting, working, and thinking spaces for social change and innovation.

One by one the space crowded up with familiar and new people, all with a delicious welcome drink in their hands, and a smile on their faces. Oh, our Hamburg batch keeps growing! Each time we meet I love observing the actual process of relationships being built and grown - it’s the subliminal notion of people getting excited to meet each other, the long hugs they provide, and the depth in conversations they dive into with each other right away. Writing this, I literally hear Jessica whispering into my ear: “It’s magic!”

Together we arrived at this place and time to explore how our inner worlds relate to the topic of Letting Go. As founders, we know the internal struggle of being caught in the grip of the "success story" narrative. With a constant fear of failing, we struggle to realize that something isn't working, and often hide away from the immense challenge of gracefully letting go. But here's the truth: the journey of entrepreneurship is a continuous ebb and flow of new beginnings and meaningful closures. In the whirlwind of initiating new ventures, it's easy to overlook the significance of properly closing off old chapters. We get caught up in the rush, and before we know it, our energy is divided, and our focus becomes scattered. Together we wanted to explore the powerful process of meaningfully letting go.How can we give closure the attention it deserves and appreciate the wisdom it brings? How can we embrace change with grace, so we create space for growth, innovation, and fresh opportunities?

Preceded by a meditation to anchor us in the now and with each other, we dove into very personal experiences of goodbyes. Ones that reached from the experience of death and losing beloved ones and the insights this process has offered for life, over the experience of letting go of a particular identity, an urge to “become or be someone” to either oneself or to others; to the experience of finding stability and hope in religion in order to let change get through you and knowing you’ll survive it and eventually come out even better.

All of these sharings triggered a deep sense of freedom within me. A sense of freedom that seems to be covered under so, so many layers of fear - a fear to fail, a fear to lose (someone or something), a fear to stop and pause and let a realization hit truth - an admission that would require a consequence of me. Uncovering those fears layer by layer within a triad I could almost feel my body freeing up, releasing tightness - through deep breaths, through tears, tension, and relaxation.

And it is still - weeks later - moving within me: into how many open/ unclosed loops is my energy flowing - in my professional life looking at the many projects and exciting initiatives I’m involved in, in my private life reflecting on all the relationships I try to uphold, harmonize or simply manage to friends or family. Is there a limit to the capacity of passion, of love? How often did I allow myself to give something a close, a meaningful end? And where exactly do I fear doing so today? How much more energy (passion, or love) would I have for things I truly, lovingly care for?

PS: Thank you, eeden Hamburg - Jessica, Celine, Kübra, Gülay, Nürsen - for having us. I feel this is the start of expanding the Brafe Tuesday from our living room to the living rooms of our members. I can’t wait to see who’s hosting us next <3.