Today I wanted to share an email with you that I sent the day I left New Zealand to move back to the States.
The recipient was my amazing coach — Steph Jagger — who has been an incredible guiding light over the past few months.
Read on for an excerpt of the email.
HELLO!
I had to send you an email today because something so cool and mysteriously magical happened this morning.
Before we spoke yesterday, I sat down with all of the artwork I've made here in NZ and decided to let it go. I threw it all in the trash. With love, of course. I felt so grateful to have made it. Each piece taught me something. But I knew it was time to let it go.
(That, and I just didn't have room for it all in my bag.)
I released all expectations of my art right there. I really feel like the past few months have been leading up to that moment of surrender.
Then we had our call, and those words "Maybe you are an artist, not a designer" struck me right in the gut. I knew it was true immediately.
But still, I had this overwhelming peace after we chatted, "Just let it be", and decided to relax into this uncertainty and just trust. I would make art again.
I removed all art pieces from my web shop, but forgot to take them down from Etsy. Welllll, today I woke up and had sold my first "real" piece of art. (I sold one other piece before to a friend. Still counts, but this one was a complete stranger and it felt different.)
My heart dropped and leapt and I scrambled out of bed to sift through all the trash bags. I finally found the one small piece this person bought, still perfectly in tact.
I hear you, Universe.
The pure mystery and magnitude of it makes me a bit weepy as I am about to walk out this door, where I've met so many lows and highs and breakthroughs and battles. Like this whole year was worth more than I can even comprehend right now.
Funny how the Universe shows up right when you're ready, in the most unsuspecting of ways.
[Editor's note: I much appreciated this part of Steph's response — "I love what you wrote about the Universe showing up when you're ready but really my girl, the Universe is always there...it's waiting for us to show up!" This is why she's the best.]
There's that quote by Albert Einstein: "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” I feel like I'm slowly stepping back into that state of magic.
Surrender does not mean giving up hope, but sometimes (usually) you just need to LET. GO. You just might find that when you walk away from the door you've been knocking on for weeks, months, years.. it opens.
Or it doesn't. And that's okay too. You'll find other doors, the right doors.
That's the deal with surrender. You don't know where you'll go, but when you stop trying to force your way you'll end up right where you're supposed to be.
Here's to miracles, mystery, and magic.
And surrender.
-Amanda