Once I Stopped Trying, I Started Doing.
When Mira the Philosopher stopped forcing and started flowing, everything shifted. Once I Stopped Trying, I Started Doing is her reflection on surrender, growth, and finding freedom in being human.
The phrase, “Once I stop trying, I start doing,” has been resonating with me lately. It’s rooted in the spiritual law of non-attachment—not as a way to bypass the real forces of oppression under capitalism, heteropatriarchy, and white supremacy, but as a grounding mantra during difficult mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual periods (usually all three, or a combination of them). It’s a method of being. ‘Being’ is the embodiment of curiosity, excitement, and joy. Learning to exist in this new era—this evolving self—requires stumbling, failing, and sitting with discomfort, pain, and even momentary judgment or guilt. Yet I know that no matter what, I will change, I will grow, and I will continue to do better as a human being on a spiritual path.
Wherever I am in my journey, the central message feels clear: to talk to myself. Whether through thought, emotion, or art, self-expression is necessary. Speaking with spirit, honoring my ancestors, and ritualizing my process are all essential for this chapter. It’s about being really fucking clear about what feels safe and what doesn’t—understanding that boundaries are part of the greater equation of experience.
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Additionally, I’m getting clearer about what I want to create for myself in this human experience. Is it to hold strong opinions and live in that truth for as long as it excites me? This is my city. This is my home. My clothes are home. My memories are home. Discovering who we are is part of understanding what home truly means. Home is transforming in my fourth house, with Pluto in Aquarius going direct. So, what elements of home do I want to ritualize, define, or co-create with spirit? How do I want to curate an environment that feels beautiful, safe, just, and sustainable?
To find these answers, I must do shadow work—open my journal and pour myself into it. This process is deeply personal. It requires vulnerability, honesty, and realism. For me, that means getting clear about the kind of life I want to build—one that allows financial stability, creative freedom, and sustainable use of my time and energy for creating, expressing, analyzing, and organizing. My goal is to contribute to a broader coalition for collective liberation—through writing, storytelling, and research that activates people and escalates our efforts toward freeing ourselves from this fascist, hateful, oppressive society.
This requires collective effort and a lot of energy—energy we don’t always have while balancing full-time jobs, family responsibilities, friendships, community, and most importantly, ourselves. It asks us to push past the limits of the mind—to stop viewing our days, time, and energy as resources being depleted and instead as sources that are ever-abundant. Everything in our lives reflects us. We just have to believe we’re capable of more than we were ever told.
This can be overwhelming. It feels uncomfortable because this shift challenges how I’ve been taught to think and feel. It often brings anxiety—I still wrestle with perfectionism, productivity, and the pressure to fit into a society I want nothing to do with. Sometimes I get stuck. Sometimes I feel hopeless. Sometimes I want to give up. But I know that what I’m processing will only help me trust myself more, grow deeper, and become more of who I truly am—so I can keep shining my light into the world.
I trust that this period of growth won’t last forever, but it will prepare me for the next fall, the next failure, and the hurdles beyond that. That’s life—we get lost so we can return, finding oneness in the past, present, and future. Returning to the present is where we reset, where we realign our minds with what we want to create. The manifestations and goals I hold for myself and my community are one and the same.
As I write, I feel the jigsaw puzzle of my life slowly coming together. I’m becoming more comfortable with not knowing—with uncertainty, with not having all the answers. I’m learning to let life take the wheel, to stop resisting moments of discomfort, depression, or longing, and to be patient enough to endure them a little longer. I even feel free to be a little insufferable—to be fully myself around those I love. Of course, never with the intent to project onto others, but simply without judging myself for being, at times, the source of my own suffering. How human of me.
To stop trying, eliminates the judgment that comes from forcing my mind to do the impossible—like commanding myself not to feel depressed, stressed, or anxious in this chaotic world. Instead, I can zoom out, return to ground zero, pause, and restart. When I stop trying and start doing, I create space to course-correct, pivot, and explore something new, something different, something alive.
