My kids constantly draw pictures.
Or dive head down into a coloring book. Or make some yarn-strewn piece of art that emerges from the recesses of their play dough brains.
Their art’s everywhere. Taped in the bay window, scattered over the five-year-old’s desk, strewn across the eight-year-old’s floor, stuffed in the 10-year-old’s toy chest.
They did them. All of them. They create and they let go.
Create and let go.
They do the thing and it’s complete. Without a tweak here and a touch there. Without edit after edit. Without wanting for a masterpiece.
Let go is a thing. It’s talked about endlessly in Western yoga classes.
“Just let go. Let that thought float down the river. Or move on like clouds passing in the sky,” said the beautifully well-intentioned teacher.
To which I’d respond in my head, “I get it, I get it! Just let go. But what the hell does that actually mean!? What do you want me to do!?”
Trust me, this drove me nutty. And since we’ve agreed that just let go can be a cliff of a conundrum (at least for me), let’s back up.
Let’s put the car in reverse and back up to see something we passed.
Just a little bit ago…
Just a tad further back…
Yup, right there. On the side of the road, see that sign? We’ve arrived!
Here we are.
Let’s instead check out the Land of Let Be.
Ah, yes.
To let be. So what does that mean?
To let be means to stop tussling around with something.
To put it down even though you know it could be better.
Because it could always be better.
Or different.
(For sure, it could always be different.)
And if you’re creative and your mind is always churning on the ways—the infinite ways—that a situation, or you, or another’s life, could be better, then you’re kind of screwed. By your creativity.
Because your creativity can see all the ways.
And man, there are so many awesome ways that this right now could be better. Or that thing you’re creating could be better. Or that trip you’re planning could be better.
To let be means
to choose to
stop.
To say with whatever grace and softness you can muster, “Enough. This is enough.”
And perhaps to even ponder, play with
“This is complete.”
That person is complete.
You don’t need to wish for more or different for him.
That project is complete.
It’s enough just as it is.
You are complete.
In your learning and evolving and wondering.
This is complete.
Complete.
Any moment, anything, anyone can have a bow on them. A loosely tied and intricately adorned bow. Which completes the package.
And it’s okay to know you might not feel like it’s complete in five minutes or a day or a week or whatever.
But right here and now, you can turn the page. You can finish the chapter. You can feel complete.
Feeling complete is taking a pause.
Celebrating a chosen ending and not one imparted on you by societal norms and achievements.
It’s a momentary glimpse into satiation.
With a catch.
To get it to last, you’ve got to practice it. To build the skill, you’ve got to exercise the action.
When you catch the spin and the solving and the creating. And the imagining of a million different ways it could be.
If you need a break, lean in, put it down, and know,
this
is
complete.
~
AUTHOR: RACHEL MANETTI
IMAGE: MARTINA BULKOVÁ/PIXABAY
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