The Art of Letting Go (Without Giving Up)

A reflection from the On Compassion and Change series

I didn’t realize how much urgency lived in my body until I started building this social enterprise.
Ever since early October, as I began creating Just Helping Out, I’ve felt these familiar waves rise up—moments where my chest tightens, my mind rushes ahead, and everything suddenly feels like it has to happen right now.

It’s an old feeling.
The kind that comes from places shaped by survival, performance, and the need to prove I belonged.
It took me a while to recognize it for what it was: not intuition, not clarity, but fear dressed up as urgency.

There have been moments when I’ve caught myself spiraling into self-doubt…
Moments where I questioned whether I was capable enough, prepared enough, or “legitimate” enough to build something meaningful from the ground up.
Moments where the fear of failing—or being seen failing—made my whole body move faster than my spirit could keep up.

And every time, it has taken reflection, thought redirection, grounding, and a kind of quiet re-centering to pull myself back into the present.
Self-awareness has become my anchor.
Noticing when my nervous system is slipping into fight-or-flight.
Noticing when the story I’m telling myself isn’t true.
Noticing when urgency is simply fear wearing a different face.

Because most of the time, nothing was actually wrong.
Nothing was collapsing.
Nothing was on fire.
I was just scared—and the old habits of rushing, performing, and pushing had come online to protect me in the only way they knew how.

“Urgency isn’t the same as importance.”

That realization changed everything.
I started sorting my thoughts differently:
Was something truly urgent, or was I just afraid?
Was I responding to reality, or to a story my fear was telling?
Was I moving with intention, or reacting to a feeling I didn’t yet understand?

Learning to pause in that tiny space between fear and action has become its own practice.
A breath.
A grounding.
A slow return to my body.
It’s in those moments that I remind myself: nothing meaningful is built from panic.

Care can’t be rushed.
Creativity can’t be forced.
And healing—whether personal or collective—can’t be scheduled into tidy timelines.

Letting go of urgency doesn’t mean letting go of passion or purpose.
It means moving differently.
It means choosing steadiness over speed.
It means trusting that you don’t have to outrun your fear in order to build something real.

And strangely, letting go has made me braver.
Because every time I set down urgency, I pick up presence.
Every time I set down perfection, I pick up possibility.
Every time I set down fear, I pick up clarity about why I’m doing this in the first place.

Letting go is not giving up.
It’s giving myself back to myself.

And maybe that’s the quiet wisdom of starting something later in life—
we finally learn that rushing doesn’t get us anywhere faster.
Presence does.
Patience does.
Trust does.

So I’m learning, slowly, gently, over and over again:
when urgency rises, I don’t have to follow it.
I can pause.
I can listen.
I can let go.

And I can keep going—
without giving up anything that matters.