Kill your darlings: The art of letting your creations die.

I’ve created many precious things in my life so far: friendships, partnerships, a successful career, supportive communities, and much more. They have been buoys that keep me afloat, give me purpose, and, in many ways, define me.

But I’ve come to realize an important truth: the times when I have experienced the most staggering growth, the most heart-opening love, and the deepest trust in myself, has been when I’ve allowed those precious things to die.

Indeed, when I myself have killed them.

This is an aspect of creation that we hardly acknowledge, let alone validate and encourage. To kill our darlings, as William Faulkner (purportedly) wisely put it.

We're socialized to fear death, then end up paying the toll for it

What would the earth be like if nothing ever died, but only grew and grew without checks and balances? Without autumn and winter? Without predators?

We see this epidemic reflected in our bodies, our society, and our planet. Cancer cells grow and grow inside us, unchecked; companies merge into bigger companies to avoid collapsing entirely; and the earth mother reminds us, with louder and louder calls, that we need to burn, need to drown, need to bleed.

Nothing can live forever. When we force it to, it becomes uncanny and inhuman. And it keeps us stuck.

If you’ve been wanting change, growth, improvement, I encourage you to look at what has been trying to die in your life that you keep resuscitating because you learned that quitting is a sign of weakness, that saying no is rude, and that making a mistake means you’re stupid. It’s not lazy or weak to give something (or someone) up when you’re done learning from them. It’s wise. And it’s hard as hell sometimes.

The importance that conscious endings play in our lives

Experiencing a death – any type of death, not just biological – is hard on our bodies, minds, and spirits. But living in those experiences teaches us valuable lessons about what we want to create next, what we would do differently. It helps form a pattern of regeneration where we grow back better than before, like a bone that’s strongest in the places it’s been broken.

What I can tell you about killing my creations – big and small – is this: when you’re connected and listening to your intuition, you’ll know when it’s time. I’ve woken up sweating in the middle of the night and felt deep in my body that I needed to break up with a partner, and did so within a few weeks. I’ve found objects in my house that I couldn’t bear to live with anymore because they represented an old version of myself that was no longer true, and tossed them in the donation bin.

It doesn’t feel good to kill these things, but it does feel right.

Another important lesson on killing your creations is to say goodbye, in whatever form suits you. For me, I’ve gone to group outings knowing it was the last time I would participate: feeling the discomfort of being a new version of myself doing an old-me activity confirmed that I was taking the right step. Similarly, I’ve worked the last few weeks of a job being very conscious of how unsuitable it was for me – I let myself feel it deeply not just to be mournful, but also grateful of how much it was a reflection of my own growth.

Saying goodbye might look like burning something symbolic, writing a letter or journal entry, or another ritual that helps you separate from what you’re letting go and have peace.

Let yourself have goodbye. Don’t just kill your darlings, but bury them thoughtfully and with compassion.

And trust yourself. Just because something is dying doesn’t mean you’re dying.

Honoring what was while creating space for what comes next

We’re taught to believe that creating is hard – it takes sweat and tears (right?). But it doesn’t need to be so hard; when we let things die and give ourselves space to feel their loss, we come out of that period with renewed energy, excitement, and curiosity. We just forget what that feels like because we spend so much of our time and energy watering plants that have long withered, feeding creations that have already lived fully and now have nothing else to teach us.

Underneath the bones of your past wonderful, right, precious children is something beautiful waiting to be birthed. Give yourself permission to move on to it. It’s only waiting for your breath to bring it to life.

And someday, this too will die. And all of the ones after it. And you have what it takes to do the killing.

(But be warned: sometimes they die screaming.)