Letting go is the ultimate visibility hack. As creators, we often pressure ourselves to produce work that matters—something that captures attention, resonates deeply, and maybe even changes someone’s perspective. The challenge? When we focus outside ourselves—worrying about what others might think or how our work will impact—our analytical minds take over, pushing our authentic creativity to the background. But true visibility emerges when we learn to let go.
When you start working, everybody is in your studio—the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas—all are there. But as you continue painting, they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you are lucky, even you leave.
A Lesson in Letting Go
I was teaching a Buoyant Studio art class, working on two canvases that were part of the same series. Neither one felt precious. There was no pressure to make something great.
I dipped my brush in color, moved paint across one piece until it felt like I’d reached a stopping point, then shifted to the other. Back and forth. Back and forth.
I wasn’t analyzing or planning—just exploring. Playing.
Somewhere in that rhythm, my thinking mind slipped away. I was no longer “trying.” I was mostly “gone,” yet completely absorbed. I had let go.
After about an hour, I sat back, breathless in the best way. Out of nowhere, the full table of contents for my second book came roaring forward—clear, whole, undeniable.
I hadn’t even been thinking about the book, its ideal audience, or its throughline.
It was as if my soul, which had been relegated to the sidelines by the meticulous, left hemisphere of my brain (the version of me I refer to as “Clipboard Susie”), sniffed a rare opportunity to grab the mic while the thinking/judging part of me napped.
The ideas (some of my best) came through the moment I allowed myself to disappear into the work. What arrived was vulnerable, honest, resonant.
Letting go takes courage, but I promise—it’s worth it.
For entrepreneurs and creators who feel lost, desperate for traction and visibility, that kind of surrender can feel impossible. We’re told to push harder, plan smarter, optimize everything.
But when our rational, analytical minds take center stage, our souls can’t speak.
Our work becomes a dry calculation, a desperate attempt to be seen. And that energy repels the very people we’re trying to reach.
The magic happens by letting go of the need for the work to prove anything. When we stop performing and start listening. When we lose ourselves in creating for its own sake, that’s when our truest essence—our soul—emerges.
It’s not loud or strategic. It’s quiet and steady. Warm and amorphous. Loving.
It radiates through everything we touch, and people can feel it. They may not know why they’re drawn to you, only that they are.
Our ideal clients don’t find us because we’ve mastered the perfect marketing formula. They find us because something in our work mirrors their own longing for truth. Such resonance can’t be forced. It comes only by letting go, when we are no longer in the way.
So, when you feel stuck or fearful, make something that doesn’t matter. Get lost on purpose inside the playful experimentation of simply moving your hands. No special “talent” is required!
(If you need easy ideas, guidance to get started, and fun practices to build your courage muscles, pick up a copy of my book, Buoyant.)
Paint, write, design, cook, garden, sketch, collage, make images—whatever your medium—without an agenda. Allow yourself to move between projects, to play, to follow curiosity wherever it leads.
That’s how the noise and rancor that cleave our joy and energy fall away.
That’s when the deeper current of who we truly are rises to the surface, bringing clarity, direction, and inspiration far beyond anything our minds could plan.
When the striving/pleasing parts of us finally step aside, our souls step forward, fueling the most delicious spaciousness we’ve ever experienced.
And in this freedom from the gripping fear of the knives of judgment, we can at last be seen.
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