Grow Slow
Does your mind feel more like a wilderness or a garden? This question came to mind on a recent hike. Surrounded by forest, I found myself in awe with the quiet stillness, and seemingly endless wilderness. Beauty in both the view from the overlook point at the top of the trail and in the small details like the bright green moss at the base of a tree trunk. As I pondered this question, I began to reflect on how our minds operate in both ways. Sometimes as a wilderness where we might not see or know each detail ahead in the path we are on. This might be during a season of change or transition in our lives like a recent move, a change in relationship status, or a new job. Other times, our minds grow like gardens. We nourish specific things of focus with intention. This might look like a specific goal we are working to achieve like weight loss or a business goal. It may even look like a mindset goal, like trying to focus on being more forgiving or kinder in every day life.
Whether life feels more like a wilderness or a garden in this season you are in, I invite you to give yourself permission to grow slow.
WHAT MIGHT GIVING YOURSELF PERMISSION TO GROW SLOW LOOK LIKE THIS MONTH?
It seems when we step into something new, we often bring along the belief that we need to hurry, or hustle our way to happy. If it’s a recent move, we might feel like we need to hurry up so we can feel “settled.” Or if we’ve set a goal to lose weight, we feel the need to make all the changes as quickly as possible to get to our goal quicker. Or if we want to practice being more forgiving, we might try to hurry along the process, only adding more judgment to our current self.
This mindset makes sense. Culturally, we live surrounded by external pressures like deadlines or results or are seeing the success of someone else, not knowing the full picture of how long it took them to grow there. It makes sense that faster = better. And sometimes this mindset serves us really well. But not always. Sometimes the belief that we need to hurry up blocks us from allowing what is and from the grace of the present moment.
Growing slow doesn’t mean that we don’t take a step moving forward. Nor does it mean we ignore commitments we choose to keep. Growing slow means that we give ourselves permission to keep trying. To keep digging, to keep creating strategies no matter the obstacle. To keep looking for the combination of sunlight and water that will help our garden to grow.
If you are walking in a wilderness of uncertainty, I invite you to clear a little mental space for a small garden this month. And if you are already growing a garden, I invite you to apply these principles to whatever your goal may be.
- PULL SOME WEEDS. Spoiler alert. We all have weeds. Weeds are part of the learning process. And, when left unmangaed, they can take over our gardens. Weeds sometimes sneak into our gardens. If we are trying to lose weight, a weed might sound like “it’ll never work for me.” That’s a thought we may want to look at pulling. It may take some wiggling and loosening and thinking about how if weight loss is possible for other people, it might be possible for us. WHAT IS ONE WEED THAT YOU ARE AWARE OF THAT YOU WANT TO LOOSEN?
- PLANT WITH PURPOSE. No matter how small our garden, we can plant with purpose. As feelings come from our thoughts, we can use our thoughts to generate feelings we want to feel on a regular basis. One way to practice this is to think of a feeling you think you will feel when your garden is in full bloom. Is it confidence? Is it contentment? Is it calm? Remember that all of those feelings are available to you now, even when the garden is full of seedlings. As we practice nourishing these feelings with purpose on a daily basis, we allow ourselves to grow what it is we want to grow. WHAT IS ONE FEELING THAT YOU WANT TO FEEL ON A REGULAR BASIS? WHAT THOUGHTS WOULD YOU NEED TO THINK TO FEEL THAT FEELING?
- LOOK FOR WHAT IS GROWING.I stepped outside our front porch the other day and immediately noticed the weeds that needed to be pulled. I walked back inside and went about the day, making a note to go back out and weed. Later that afternoon, I pulled into the driveway, and the most beautiful hyacinth blossom was in full bloom right next to the weeds I had noticed that morning. I had been so focused on clearing out the weeds, I completely missed the beauty of what was growing right next to it. Use this month to look for what is growing in your life. Sure, there are things on the to do list that didn’t get done, but what did happen? How was it exactly what it needed to be? WHAT GOOD THINGS ARE GROWING IN YOUR LIFE RIGHT NOW?
Growing slow may feel uncomfortable. And that’s okay. Discomfort means growth is happening. It’s in the stretching and the strengthening that we begin to embrace what’s possible and let go of what we believe isn’t.
