Stepping Back and Moving Forward

Making progress is a funny thing.  The art of allowing ourselves to take steps back to create space to move ahead often feels counterintuitive and frustrating.  Life would be so much easier if progress were only linear in nature!

Lately, I have been assessing the places in my life where I am having the hardest time letting go of control or believing that I can control the outcomes of my choices.  This is not my first time at this rodeo, and I realize it won't be my last.  Despite listening to all the podcasts, reading all the books, and doing all the meditations I still manage to hold onto a tiny shred of hope that I can perhaps sway the universe in some way if I exert just the tiniest bit of force here and there.  And as usual, I am reminded of the futility of this when I become frustrated, exhausted, and no further ahead in my journey.

It was during a mediation this week that I was reminded of the importance of stepping out of the way to allow for events to unfold as they are meant to.  The analogy shared was one of a gardiner planting seeds for a future flowerbed.  The gardiner has some control over the outcome of their project, in that they choose the types of flowers they wish to grow, decide where the garden should be, and do the actual planting of the seeds themselves.  They may tend to the plot and ensure that the seeds are nurtured with water and are allowed to germinate underground.  But beyond that, they really need to surrender control.  No matter how much the gardiner might think about the seeds and have a vision for how their future garden might look, it is really out of their hands.  They cannot force the seeds to grow and the flowers to bloom any more quickly or slowly than they do, and they also cannot control unforeseen circumstances that may intervene to disrupt and change the final outcome of their garden.  Imagine the energy that would be wasted in trying to control those variables.  Instead, the gardiner must simply accept that they have done all they can, and it is now up to nature and those seeds to do the rest. 

A similar exercise could be employed as we look at our life's journey.  We can dream and hold hope for how our future might look.  We can take steps towards a certain outcome and can provide ourselves with as much nourishment and care as possible to help toward those end goals.  We can allow ourselves to visualize and manifest steps along the way and can remain present to notice as we are given breadcrumbs by the universe to help us along our way.  But ultimately we need to trust in the process and step back from the control panel to allow those forward steps to take place.  We need to understand that even one or two steps sideways or backward are all leading us in the right direction.  It may not be the direction we anticipated or even wanted to explore, but upon reflection may prove to be a pivotal part of the overall puzzle.

I have never been much of a green thumb, but the analogy of the garden and patience did resonate with me.  As we move into a season of laying fallow and resting, it feels timely to take that step back to allow the seeds we have planted to be nurtured and germinate and to trust in the garden that will bloom for us when the timing is right.