Create + Release
“What do I do?” I cried to my therapist halfway through our session. In classic therapist fashion, she didn’t answer and instead waited for me to come to the conclusion on my own.
“I can’t do anything,” I told her after a second, “I just have to wait.”
Normally, we associate waiting with patience. I always believed myself to be a fairly patient person, I had no problem waiting in lines, or being patient with others. Yet what I realize now, is that waiting to me means inaction, and that has never been my strong suit.
In fact I’ve always prided myself on my drive and ambition, on knowing what I want and taking all the appropriate steps to get there. It’s taken determination, discipline, tenacity, but ultimately, I can proudly say that I’ve accomplished everything I’ve set my mind to. I’ve seized every opportunity, kept every promise to myself.
Yet I never realized how patience was intertwined with all of these other values I fostered over the years. I never realized that determination, discipline and tenacity require patience, or rather I took that patience for granted. I merely saw it as a fact, a byproduct, rather than something I was intentionally cultivating. The truth is, building the life I always dreamed of took time, it took years of dreaming and working, so it’s not the patience I take issue with, but the waiting. The inaction of it.
I looked at my therapist again, tears blooming at the corners of my eyes, and knew what she would say before she said it. “You have to let go.” Letting go has also never been my strong suit, for many of the same reasons that waiting has never been my strong suit. But as I reflected on our conversation the following days, I knew that letting go would be integral to navigating this stage of my life, and something I’d benefit from learning for the rest of my life. So I landed on my two words for 2023 “Create and release” a compromise between what I crave and what I need.
While creating encompasses writing, choreographing, designing and all of the artistic outlets I’m drawn to, it also encompasses creating space both for my multi-faceted self and for new opportunities, creating habits and routines, creating bonds, creating experiences. Release means release expectations, releasing judgement, releasing the need to control outcomes or get answers. Releasing is breathing deep and trusting in what I’ve built. It’s opening up my clenched fists, who usually hold on so tightly to the good, for the possibility of wonder and abundance.
