You don’t become a writer if stability is something you need. Fame, fortune, or even money for your work are all elusive notions you can dream about, but you can’t bank on them. I know this, accept this, and therefore think I am someone who is good at letting go and trusting that the universe will provide what I need.
I’m not trying to portray myself as a yogi sitting on a mountaintop, serene and calm about all that comes her way. Please, I have far too much fun spilling my worries on the page. I’m just saying as far as my career goes, I survive the ambiguity, rejections, and dubious salary by combining letting go, with blind faith, with a dash of resignation.
Letting go means being grateful that I rarely if ever suffer from writer’s block. It means taking pride in finishing an essay or book, without being attached to whether that piece is published or not. It means remembering that I write because I love and need to write, not because I’m hoping to buy a house in Maui with my royalties. Blind faith that my persistence will eventually pay off and my love of the work gets me through the rejections, unsteady salary, and fear that I’ll never “make it.”
And when all of that fails, resignation keeps me going. I’m basically unemployable, so what else am I going to do? I’ve been writing, coaching and teaching for over a decade. This provides me with two job skills: I know how to tell people what to do and I know how to stay motivated (and motivate others) to write. Not much for a resume. Throw in that I only know how to use a Mac, work in my pajamas, pick my kids up at 3:00 most days, don’t commute, and refuse to work anywhere near a cubicle, fluorescent lights or windowless rooms, and I’m not left with a lot of job options. Loving what I do helps, but the reality that there’s not much else I’m qualified to do keeps me going on my non yogi days.
But just because I’m mediocre at “letting go” of my work and financial life, doesn’t necessarily correlate to being mediocre at letting go of my personal relationships. This came as a shock to me. Even worse, I noticed that after a series of good days, or even weeks, of feeling in flow work wise, I’d freak out about my personal life. This made no sense to me because I thought if I could let go and trust one area of my life, I would be able to do it in all areas. Actually, the opposite occurred and I’d grip and suffocate one area after letting go of another.
Upon realizing this, I did what everyone I know does—I called my therapist.
“You have to let go of thinking you are the only person who can protect you and …”
“No way!” I interrupted her. “For years, I relied on other people to emotionally support me and they didn’t. Knowing and trusting myself to be my own protector has saved me from continuing to get hurt by people who couldn’t or wouldn’t be there for me. There’s no way I’m letting that go.”
“You have to otherwise you’ll never really let your boyfriend in and you’ll never trust that the relationship is unfolding as it should. You’ll try to control it, make up worse case scenarios, and pack your bags.”
I knew what she was saying was true, but that didn’t mean I was ready to change. Deep inside, I didn’t believe anyone was reliably and consistently able to be there for me, so I relied on myself. In my life, people stayed physically, but they emotionally left. When I felt this start to happen (or even just worried about it happening) I wanted the person to physically leave so I could grieve and then get on with my life. I’m not saying this was healthy, I’m just saying it was better than relying on people who couldn’t or wouldn’t be there and then getting hurt.
“You’re asking me to jump off Niagara Falls,” I told my therapist. “And I won’t. You aren’t even throwing me a life preserver.”
She pushed me again, I said “I’m not ready, no way,” and then she gave me the look. The look that says, “All right, good luck being alone and overwhelmed then.”
For the next couple of days I thought about what she said (in between cursing her for being a pain in my ass). Various content from all that I’ve been writing about over the years came to mind. Estrangement, fear, doubt, sex, repressed childhood rape, divorce, loneliness, less than ideal parenting, an estranged sister, separating from my mother, cancer, alcoholism, loss and love. None of it has been surface. All of it required being willing to take a risk and be vulnerable. Isn’t that what she was saying I needed to be able to do in my relationship? Is that really any scarier than doing it for strangers and uptight, red pen in their hands editors?
Maybe it isn’t jumping off Niagara Falls. Maybe it’s just being willing to go for a swim in Green Lake. Sure it can be cold at times or stink of algae, but it can also feel rejuvenating and relaxing. Kind of like letting go.

Corbin Lewars is the author of Creating a Life: The memoir of a writer and mom in the making, which was nominated for the 2011 PNBA and Washington State book awards and is now available via ebook. Her essays have been featured in over twenty-five publications including Mothering and Hip Mama. She teaches coaches other writers on-line, via the phone and in person in Ballard.