I Let Go of Doing It Right

Every year on Rosh Hashanah, I try to do it right.

I join a ceremony online, and there's a plate of symbolic foods we're meant to prepare. But the ceremony is not in English, so the translations are often a little off, and I end up working so hard to make my plate perfect: fish head, beets, dates, all in the right place.

This year was different. I was in another time zone, so by the time the ceremony started it was late. All I had was apples and honey. And for the first time, I let it be enough.

Something in me had let go of the need to do it perfectly. And when I did, I could actually hear.

I heard the rabbi's words in a way I never had before. I wasn't in my head wondering if I was "doing a good job." I was present. I was dropped in.

It reminded me of a passage from The Eros Sutras, Volume 4: Relationship:

"It can be truly humbling to see and admit we have spent lifetimes building big, dramatic expressions on top of simple things. And that in order to know these things, we need to clear away everything we think we know…and be intimate with experience as it is happening."

That's exactly what happened. When I stopped obsessing about the external details, I could feel the blessing in the words themselves:

🍎 That wholeness inside means nothing outside can truly harm you.

🍎 That even when fires burn around us, they don't have to burn within us.

🍎 That gratitude keeps our souls full, and fullness cannot be burned.

🍎 That God's promise is renewal: a slate wiped clean, an invitation to begin again.

This was more nourishing than the perfect symbolic plate could ever be.

I realized: the deeper meaning of Rosh Hashanah — and of life itself — isn't about performing it right. It's about being open enough to be impacted. It's about letting the love that's available in each moment actually reach us.

With love,

Courtenay @ Soulmaker Press

The Eros Sutras hold the ideas; reflections like this one come from living them. Explore the series →