With the holiday season in full swing, I imagine many of you are sneaking in this DLM read between answering emails, writing copy and figuring out how to grow your biz…while also fitting in errands, parties, yoga classes and fulfilling client sessions. Wow, do we women entrepreneurs make it all happen!

Meanwhile, your inner monologue is probably thinking about who you’re giving gifts to this year, where you’ll be traveling to, and when you’ll be pushing out the final marketing pieces in your current launch sequence. And if you’re anything like me, then in the back of your mind you’re also starting to reflect on the year behind you.

A lot of your memories (I hope) are about your accomplishments. If you think about it, you’re so much further along than you were last year in many (I didn’t say all) parts of your life. You’ve grown. You’ve had some major wins and on New Year’s Eve there will be so much to raise a glass to.

At the same time, the journey of life typically includes loss, and it comes in so many forms. You may have lost a loved one this year, or perhaps you’ve gone through a tough break up. Maybe you left behind a friendship (or fifteen) or a job. Or perhaps you felt the loss of a dream—something many of us went through when we postponed the hope of our first woman president this year.

Change can be really difficult, and why shouldn’t it be? We fall in love with people, situations, expectations and routines, even when sometimes they don’t serve us, or when something better is waiting in the wings. To deal with the pain, sometimes we detach. Or, we let the loss completely consume us. Somewhere in the middle, we end up stuck thinking that there’s no way we’ll ever have it quite so good again. Because we can’t possibly imagine being as madly in love or making as much money, we block ourselves from receiving what’s next.

Recently life reminded me that it is possible to have a happy relationship with your past—to honor it without it holding you back. As you might remember, earlier this year I experienced the loss of my dear dog Ginger. Finding out she had made her transition while I was abroad was extremely difficult for me. I went through all of the emotions of grief, and during my darkest hour I could not see any possibility for rebirth or evolution.

Now through to the other side of it, I still miss Ginger dearly, but I know that I must move on. Our time with Ginger is something unique we will always cherish, but this holiday season, Glenn and I were finally ready to move forward, open our hearts and welcome a new addition to our family. Rest assured, she’s no replacement—rather, she brings her own personality and energy into building her own relationship with us. It feels a little bit like coming full circle.

So if you’re processing loss this season and if perhaps you haven’t dealt with your emotions yet, I want you to know that you ARE strong enough to handle the pain that comes with saying goodbye. You can take care of yourself, pray, and let it all out. You can seek support and take a step forward everyday. And you can honor the memory of something that was without having to promise never to be happy again. It’s okay to feel a loss without letting it take you out completely.

We all have nostalgia for the way things were, but ultimately, hanging on to the past is not what life is all about. On some level, it’s really about growth. So as we close out this year, let’s embrace whatever has occurred that has helped us to grow, learn, evolve, open our hearts and become more humble and more compassionate. And then, in gratitude, let’s get ready to say hello to the next best version of ourselves.

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