There are moments on the creative path so small you almost miss them —
moments that don’t look like triumph from the outside,
but inside you, something seismic shifts.
Today, I looked at my photographs — and felt butterflies.
It might sound simple.
But for a long time, I couldn’t feel my own work.
I could make it.
Curate it.
Polish it.
Even be praised for it.
But feeling it — really letting it land in my own body, my own heart?
That was a different story.
When you’re a sensitive, driven creator, numbness can creep in like fog:
Slowly, without even noticing, you lose access to the original electricity that made you create in the first place.
You start living around your work,
not inside it.
It’s not about thinking your work is perfect.
It’s not about waiting for outside approval.
It’s this:
It’s like finding yourself in a place you built with your own hands —
and realizing, for once, you don’t have to fix it.
You can just live in it.
Breathe in it.
Be moved.
Here are some practices that helped me find my way back:
Look at your work the way you would look at a sunset.
Not scanning for flaws.
Not rushing to improve.
Just being with it.
Let beauty exist without earning it.
There is a time to refine.
There is a time to let be.
Feeling your work happens when you let creation and critique live on different days, in different rooms.
Take time away.
Then come back — not as the maker, but as someone stumbling across a beautiful thing they didn’t expect to find.
Notice what moves you without dissecting it.
Stop waiting to feel your work only once it’s “good enough.”
You are allowed to love the drafts.
You are allowed to be enchanted by the almosts.
Make a ritual:
Light a candle.
Play music that makes you feel something.
Look through your art, your writing, your photographs — not with urgency, but with open palms.
Let yourself be affected.
This is the real success.
Not external validation.
Not numbers.
Not trends.
The real success is falling in love with your own aliveness.
A gentle invitation:
Choose one piece of your own work today. Witness it without fixing.
Let it land. Let it move you.