I keep asking the question “when do you give up” to everyone I see, text messages to friends, in Open Studio, morning pages. I feel obsessed with it. When to give up? I asked this question not because I want to give up. But because times in the past where I have given up in its various forms, it comes in as an emergency. I must give up now because the alternative is the car falling off the cliff with it. The real question here is, what are the signs you need to give something up for now. When do we change our minds?
Some things are simple to give up. A social gathering I am not longer interested in, cancelled. a meeting I don’t have the energy for, post poned. A pack of cigarettes, gone. The action isn’t easy but the knowing is. But what about the things that are functionally ok, but in some way not fitting right now.
Creating in a way that feels profound all the time is exhausting. I do not wish to be profound all the time. I wish to try. When is it that I give up profoundness in search of trying? When does trying bleed into the profound and are they at all separate. My reaction is to swing the pendulum. If A doesn’t fit it must be found all the way down at Z. If black doesn’t work it must be white. What option is there to explore even if we don’t move from A. But instead survey it, question it, hold it so closely to examine the facets and see if it fits up against your skin along longer.
All signs point to giving up. Retrograde, my period, blank pages in a google doc. They’re the white flags I am searching for. Are white flags I see signs to give up or keep going? Is it a creative block or am I just exhausted by the conditions of living and being alive? Is it my flop era or does profoundness just not immediate? Am I creating to feel or feel to create?
I work in the cycle of creating and researching. Output and input. Butterfly and cocoon. So if I know I work in a cycle, giving up has a cycle too. Is giving up the cocoon or the butterfly? I don’t think it matters.
When I ask myself when to give up I ask myself what do I really want? What kind of person will I be if I give up? Is that the person the breeds more shame or does contribute to the Big Dream? Is it the research I am hungry for the learning and cocoon? Is it the creation and output and butterfly I desire? Does giving up always mean returning to one or the other?
How many questions can I ask before I explode?
Findings 🧭
Little Village ASMR has got me in a chokehold and I ain’t leaving 💆🏻♀️
Run don’t walk to Fariha Róisín’s “On White Women”
New episode of DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE?, we discuss the origin story of our childhood burn out and maybe the reason I am obsessed with figuring it all out.
Better Futures project is here!! They’re offering free design work for values based businesses! World. Changing. Shit.
COACHING BOOKS! Been sitting on the fence thinking of working with me? Big changes coming to my booking for new clients starting Oct 1st so jump in now. Let’s write the sales page, craft the launch, and feel fucking fantastic sharing your creations with the world.
🕺🏻DISCO PILATES TONIGHT AT THE MOVE ROOM✨ 5:30 pm Sliding scale. Lets dance!
many blessings + spells for giving up!
I love you all
Phoebe
On this topic, have you ever listened to the podcast "Quitted"? Think you might dig it. It's all about giving up!