Today is another Reverb10 post:
December 5 – Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why? (Author: Alice Bradley)
This past year, I have made pretty great strides in letting go of my self-derision. Letting go of my self-criticism. That’s not to say that I don’t step back and evaluate, because without that, we’d all be terrible people. What I mean is, I have made steps to become less hard on myself. To appreciate my own talents a little more.
While it may seem insignificant to you, it’s a huge thing for me. Though I’ve still got a lot of work to do in building up my self-image, and my confidence. I have always been pretty rough on myself. I have a few skills that I KNOW I have, and I’m proud of those. But for everything else, I usually just feel mediocre at best. A fraud, a joke. And I don’t want to feel that way about myself.
By letting go of all those negative thoughts, I think I can move forward, hone the skills I already have, and sharpen the ones that I may not be so good at, but would like to be. There’s freedom that comes in feeling like it’s okay to fail, okay to not be perfect. Okay to be working, growing, learning. And with that freedom, comes the ability to see improvement, which is a far cry different than just seeing how each piece fails to measure up to some Platonic form. A far cry better.
To what have you let go?
