“The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.” — Julia Cameron
From Pushing and Proving to Slowing Down and Allowing
For a grand part of my life, everything was about pushing, proving, and striving. And there is nothing wrong with that if it comes from the right place and it’s truly what you want, in fact it was what I need to back then to get out of the comfort zone.
But lately, I feel like I am entering a new stage of life. A much softer and gentler stage, I’m calling it the seasons of softening. It is all new to me, and sometimes I feel a little all over the place. Not in a bad way, just in an unfamiliar way.
My Relationship With Pushing and Personal Development
When I was younger, I joined a personal development organization where everything was about facing your fears, pushing yourself, and conquering your mind. There was a lot of discipline, along with physical and mental challenges.
Now I understand that all that training and pushing yourself can be powerful, but only if you pair it with self-reflection and give yourself time to truly embody the experience.
Otherwise, it can become like chasing a high.
You feel energized and empowered, but you are still relying on external experiences to create that feeling. And without taking the time to reflect on what it actually means for your life, nothing truly changes.
I remember there were fears I was able to push through, and it felt good. But there were other fears that completely paralyzed me. No matter how many fire walks I did or hills I climbed blindfolded, none of that healed the fear I had of expressing my needs and using my voice.
That terrified me.
And many years had to pass before I finally felt safe enough to do that.
Entering a Softer Season of Life
I liked that pushing, fighting energy.
I like discipline. I like having a plan. My schedule was always full of things to do.
But like I said, I feel like I am entering a new era, a new season, the season of softening.
A new space where softness, gentleness, grace, and compassion can do the work much better.
There is no more fighting. It’s time to surrender.
I don’t want to fight myself into becoming anymore. I want to give myself space to remember who I am.
The Retreat That Changed Something in Me
In my quest to express myself more authentically, I decided to participate in a retreat called When Spirit Speaks. Everything about it resonated with me and what I was looking for… except for one thing.
When Maya, the facilitator, said that we would be writing and publishing a poem, I immediately thought:
What?! Me? Writing a poem? There’s no way. I can barely believe I have a blog!
That almost made me not go. I could feel the resistance. But instead of running from it, I allowed myself to move through the discomfort because I knew that on the other side of it was freedom.
Freedom to truly be myself.
Freedom from people’s opinions.
Freedom from limiting beliefs.
Freedom from fear.
Freedom to express myself.
Learning What I Needed to Feel Safe
At the retreat, Maya and her team created the perfect container for expression, play, and creativity. In a private session before the retreat, Maya asked me: “What do you need in order to express yourself?”
My answer was simple: “I need to feel safe.” And that is exactly how I felt. Not just me, all of us did.
Safe to be.
Safe to express.
Safe to move.
Safe to be held.
Safe to let go.
There was no judgment, no division, no competition. Well… maybe a little comparison in the beginning 😂. But slowly, we learned to accept our differences and embrace our uniqueness. There was painting, dancing, writing, talking, tears, healing, laughter, and space.
It truly felt like a playground for the spirit.
Remembering Instead of Fixing
I have done so much personal development work throughout my life, but it was almost always with the idea that something in me needed to be fixed.
This time felt different.
It wasn’t about fixing.
It was about remembering.
Reconnecting.
Allowing.
Needless to say, it was deeply transformational.
What Changed After the Retreat
I feel different. And I am choosing differently too. For starters, I am no longer packing my schedule with endless things to do. I am allowing life to unfold in whatever way it needs to. It still feels strange not to constantly check my schedule to see what’s next, but so far… it feels really good.
I am no longer doing things that don’t feel aligned with my energy in the moment. Like Maya says: “If it’s not a whole-body heck yes, then it’s a no.” And I am trusting that the next step will come at the perfect time.
I have been dancing, painting, and writing every single day. I even painted my mom a birthday card myself 😂. That really surprised her because she knows I “can’t draw.” But using watercolors at the retreat inspired something in me, and now I genuinely love it.
Reconnecting With Creativity and Dance
Another thing that became very clear is that I need to reconnect with dance. I used to dance all the time, and then somewhere along the way, I stopped. And I realized something important:
I don’t need to perform.
I don’t need to teach.
I just need to dance for me.
In my living room.
With music on.
Just moving.
And wow… how healing that is.
Learning to Truly Live
Before, with my packed schedule, constant doing, and endless striving, I constantly felt behind. I always carried this feeling that if I wasn’t doing something productive, I was wasting my life. Maybe that’s why I never gave myself the space to explore, create, and simply be.
But now I am.
And for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like I’m wasting my life at all. Quite the opposite. I feel like I am finally truly living it.
Maybe that’s what I’m learning lately: life isn’t meant to be lived in one constant mode. There are seasons for building, seasons for pushing, seasons for healing, and seasons for softening. None of them are right or wrong. None of them make you more or less worthy.
So if you find yourself in a season that looks different than the one before, maybe you don’t need to fight it. Maybe you don’t need to rush back into who you used to be. Maybe this season is not asking you to do more. Maybe it’s simply asking you to be, to listen and come back to what is most important.
With love,
Nathalia Mahecha
