It's Not Me

…but it's not you either

This totally stopped me, mid-scroll, the other day and I had to share it.

It's a video clip of Mara Hoffman, a fashion designer whose whole essence I have long admired. She was casually seated on an important-looking stage, mic in hand. Just a few pixels tall in the palm of my hand—so small, but so direct, so soulful. And her words have been living in my mind ever since. 

She was speaking about business, but really, she was musing about identity. The cultivating, grooming, evolving, shifting, shedding of identity.

Her eponymous brand had put her in the world, made her relevant, and gave her creativity a place to flow. But for all the opportunities and accolades her company gave her, the biggest gift came at the end—when she decided to close it.

She had to separate herself. Mara Hoffman, the person, was not Mara Hoffman Inc. The business was never her. It was simply the vessel. And vessels have lifecycles.

Mara described how she approached her company as a separate entity, engaging in an ongoing conversation with it:

“

I asked it. What are your desires? Are they different than mine? How am I of service to you? Have we done the run? Is there anything else left for us to do together? Did we say all the things?

And I've had the conversation with it through the years, and it told me in the past: ‘No, we’re not done. No, we need to fight. Fight. Stay. Stay. Fight.’ And I did. I listened and I was like, ‘Okay, I'm in. I'm fighting.’ And this time it said, ‘We're good.’ And it was me honoring that this other entity had its own beginning, middle, and end.

Am I going to die if I crack the vessel? Or if I crawl out of it? Or if I dissolve it in any way? And the answer is no. And is there room for multiple vessels? And the answer is yes...  

For anyone who thinks that a business is something separate from a spiritual practice, I am here to say that it is so deeply spiritual. It is such a way to learn yourself. To be with yourself. To die in yourself. To be born in yourself.”

I love how she talks to her business as if it’s a living being. A beloved companion. A collaborator. A guide. She listens. She waits for an answer. And when that answer changes, she honors it.

I believe all brands are personal. There’s an intrinsic entanglement , the business is an extension of the founder, but it is not the founder. As Mara says, “they are different animals.”

“I wasn't my creation. My source filled the vessel that became my creation.”

Realizing you are the source means you get to choose the vessel. Sometimes, it may mean destroying the vessel. Sometimes, creating a new container. Sometimes, restoring the cracks. And sometimes, realizing it’s better left on the shelf—because something in you is shifting.

You’ve outgrown your espresso cup, now you need a fishbowl. It's time for a bigger container. 

Or maybe no container at all. Maybe it’s time to be formless for a while. To trust that the next vessel will find you when you’re ready.

What I gathered from Mara is this: there is a season for fighting, for holding on. And there is a season for letting go, for trusting that what has carried you this far has done its job, and it’s okay to set it down. 

This is not loss.
This is not failure.
This is reverence for the natural order of things. 

Everything we create has its own beginning, middle, and end. And if we listen closely, we’ll know when it’s time to expand, time to rest, or time to start anew.

What if we treated these moments of transition not as breakdowns, but as breakthroughs? What if loosening our grip is what finally makes space for something new, something unexpected, something bigger, to come through?

So if you’re in a moment of transition, if you feel like the thing you built no longer fits, you are not lost.

You are still the source.

You can trust yourself to hold more.

You are allowed to change.

And you don’t have to know what’s next just yet.

Keep listening.

The vessel will reveal itself in time.

With reverence for the unfolding,
OLIVIA