What happens when I stop forcing something to become what I think it should be?
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I used to sit in front of my work like I was trying to convince it. Shape it. Tighten it. Make it “right”. There was always this quiet pressure underneath, like holding my breath without realizing it. And the more I tried to control it, the further away it felt.
Then something shifted.
Not in a dramatic way.
More like something in me finally loosening.
Perfectionism.
The fear of not being taken seriously.
The need for it to be right.
When I finally stopped pushing, my latest series Roots just flowed out of me. Not like a breakthrough moment. More like the ground inside me opened, and what was already there simply rose to the surface.
It felt light. Airy. Almost like it wasn’t mine to force in the first place.
I think so much of the struggle in creating comes from holding an image of how it should look, how it should sound, how it should be received. We tighten around it. We leave the body and move into the head. And somewhere in that shift, the honesty gets quieter.
But when I come back into myself, into that place that feels more like soil than structure, something else happens.
It grows.
Not perfectly. Not always clearly. But truthfully.
And Roots came from there. From a place that didn’t need to prove anything. It just needed space. It carried something I didn’t plan. Something softer. Like hope that had been waiting patiently beneath the surface, ready to be seen the moment I stopped trying so hard.
Maybe creating isn’t about pushing something into existence.
Maybe it’s about listening long enough to let it come through 🌱
Marita
