I love this word. Abundance. Say it to yourself. Abundance. It feels full and heavy, it feels like satiation and potential. I love when my yoga teacher tells me to widen my stance, when bending forward to make space for my Abundance. It feels like a loving way to approach what we have, and to be content in our space.
As a creative, abundance is not something we may consider. In fact, if there’s anything a writer is good at, it’s practicing the fear of Abundances counter point; scarcity. Scarcity says that there won’t be a next idea. There won’t be a next poem or painting or song. Scarcity says you better hang on to this project and keep working on it, because it’s the only one you have. Scarcity will tell you lies of the well inside you, drying up. That once you expend so many words, there will be no more. Once you complete this idea, that will be the end of your road and maybe your career. So hang on, greedily to that idea, to that brilliant book proposal, that one perfect poem. It could be stolen or critiqued apart, or lost. Best to hold it close to you, where it maintains a certain pristine quality. Your precious.
The funny thing about scarcity, and abundance, is that they are both self- fulfilling states of being. When we hold on to one idea, one book, one poem…our hands are useless to catch more, to reach for more, to hold more. I know, its scary. To think that this might be your last, great idea. To let it go, either out into the world, or back into the drawer for a later date. It might feel (especially when you have been working on the same novel or project for years) that this is it. All you will ever be. All you will ever write. The great American novel, never to be surpassed. Perhaps you worry you’ll never write anything as good again ( I feel that, acutely friends) But I’m here to tell you from experience, that its a good time to look at it from a different perspective.
You see, your creativity and your potential to make more art, pursue different stories, write more…it’s endless. It is a bottomless well of energy. And even after we’re gone, the things that we put into the world spark more ideas, and more stories, so really…think of your writing and creativity as a river, not a stagnant pool. When you dam it up, from fear, from worry (I’ll never write another poem this good, my novel isn’t ‘ready’) stagnation will occur. It is the only idea (ie water) in your pond. Letting it go, releasing that barrier, putting it out, submitting it, allows the water to flow freely again.
Creativity, in this way, is abundant. It is a river that we dip our hands into and grasp the ideas that come our way, play with them, run with them, drink them in (don’t drink river water, please, giardia–Beaver Fever–is real) and then when its time, let them go down stream and sit along the banks for the next one to come along. And it will come.
How do we let go? We let others see it, we make the best changes we can and throw it out into the world. Be conscious that once you let it go, its a bird flown from the nest. It might come back to visit, but you are no longer it’s home, it belongs to the world now and you have a big beautiful space (time and mental playground) for the next hatchling.
I’ve used so many metaphors in this thing, I think I got lost myself. Rivers, birds, abundance. Always abundance. You have it. You have room for all the beautiful things in your brain and those that haven’t been found yet. So let go of the fear that you’ll dry up. Loosen your hands around your one great idea so you can embrace the potential of you.
Sarah Reichert Author 