69 | Leave It There: Patience, Over-Preparation, and Perfectionism

Welcome to The Gentle Rebel Podcast, where we explore the intersection of high sensitivity, creativity, and culture. In this episode, we take a creative lens to the phrase “Let’s leave it there,” inspired by a recent live Kota gathering in The Haven.

This simple prompt opened up a rich bucket of ideas, and I’d love to share a few of the layers we started peeling back.

Inspired By An Old Ironing Board

It began with an old ironing board that I noticed outside someone’s house on an evening stroll. It sparked a chain of thoughts: Who left it there? How did it end up there? Who is it for?

My walk was consumed by thoughts of the many potential ways to look at the phrase, “Let’s leave it there”.

As well as physical objects like ironing boards and root vegetables (don’t ask) we often use to signal the end of something—a project, an argument, a meeting. It’s a way of acknowledging that we’ve reached a natural stopping point or closing something down, even if it’s unresolved.

Creativity and Patience

In our Kota gathering, we explored how these words apply to creativity—for example, setting conditions for desirable habits and practices to happen without constantly tweaking and meddling. Being patient and trusting the process can be challenging when primed to expect instant results. However, impatience can lead to unnecessary tinkering, which might sabotage the natural rhythms and pace.

Whilst “build it, and they will come” is not always true, we can create conditions (in suitable environments) that make the desirable thing a simpler and easier option.

Creative Ecosystems

We also discussed the joy of making creativity accessible. Leaving tools and materials out, ready to use, can make a huge difference. It’s less likely to occur to us to play with something in its case and tidied away than if it’s obvious and available.

Sharing and Letting Go

It can be hard to leave it there when it comes to sharing our creative endeavours with the world. We talked about literally leaving things in spaces for others to find, like hiding tiny storybooks, drawings, or poems in public places for people to discover and pass on.

Leave It There – Enough is Enough

Finally, we talked about knowing when to stop and trust the process. There are moments when, even though we might not feel ready, we know at a deeper level that we’ve done enough. We need to trust the part of us that made that decision and avoid the temptation to open up and run it “one last time”, especially from a state of anxiety or fear, which might lead to new mistakes and unnecessary bonus panic.

If any ideas we explored in this episode speak to you and you’d like to dive deeper with me, you can book a Pick The Lock call. If you’d like to peel back the layers on future prompts with me and our gentle hive of like-spirited folk, I’d love you to join us in The Haven.