Have you ever picked up a book, read enough to know you really like it, and then inexplicably set it down for months or years to come?
Or how about listening to a friend or partner give you the same unheeded advice for months or years, and then you hear someone else say the same thing (your therapist, the author of a book, a person in passing…), and suddenly that very advice sparkles with meaning, and nuance, and ripeness-for-you-right-now! (Cue friend or partner banging head against wall.)
I think experiences like this are everywhere in our lives – moments of ripeness and unripeness, when we’re ready to receive insight and help, or the stars aren’t aligned for it yet.
And I think awareness of this fact can remove a thick layer of anxiety and stress and frustration that many of us carry around giving and receiving help.
- We worry about whether we said too little or too much.
- We worry about whether we’re messing our kids up.
- We worry that someone we love isn’t listening to our advice or the advice of their own family, coach, doctor, therapist, or friends.
- We worry that our own wheels are spinning, that the things we know we should be doing aren’t translating yet into action.
But what if there’s a timeliness to change, and a timeliness to action? And what if there’s absolutely no way to anticipate what that timeliness is for sure, ever – for you or anyone else?
This not knowing isn’t a prescription for throwing our hands in the air and stopping ourselves from giving or receiving help, or thoughtfully engaging our inner worlds or the people that we love. But I think it IS a prescription for loosening up and relaxing quite a lot, especially on the oh-no-the-sky-is-surely-falling end of the spectrum.
Because who’s to say when tipping points will or won’t come? Who’s to say when something will click, and we’ll find ourselves or someone we love stepping into brand new worlds of experience?
Who’s to say that the very things we take as signs that all is going poorly aren’t actually markers along the path of beautiful, transformative stories?
Everything Belongs
Seasons are universal. Treat yours uniquely.
Timeliness or I would say growth and maturity. I am in the process of writing a personal letter to my 25 year old son and 21 year old daughter. How proud I am of them, etc. plus who their mother was while raising them and who she is now and what they have added to my life to become this me. I think of your comment Kristin, about when we are ready to receive insight and help. My younger years were filled with control and I can do it myself,frustration, hurry up. Now I am practicing your statement loosening up and relaxing. People along the way pointed the issues out to me, but it took time for me to open to hear them, reflect on my ways and change if need be. The seed had not opened enough for nutrients to flow in. That is the process of growing up from 0-end of life. Your last question is so true those signs are the markers on this path called life and it is being open to receiving and giving help. The thoughts or sharing of ourselves each day, being advice or conversation are the seeds that might be planted in that other person for their future growth. Just do it, timeliness will take care of itself.
Comment by Shandeen — May 4, 2011 @ 9:28 amShandeen, what an amazing gift that letter will be!! And I have to admit that I’m hoping to get to the loosening up and relaxing stage of life’s game sooner than later. Some things can be fast-forwarded, but maybe they can be helped along?…
Comment by Kristin — May 4, 2011 @ 3:32 pmI read your post earlier today, Kristin, but held off until this evening to comment. I wanted to let it bounce around a bit.
Comment by KathyB — May 4, 2011 @ 6:00 pmI have applied a similar belief to books for years. I thoroughly agree that something magical and spiritual happens when the right book finds you. I am suprised that I never took it farther to look at life’s events in the same way. It makes perfect sense.
I will hold this close when I find myself feeling challenged.
Thank you!
ox, K
Kathy, I’m so happy to hear your voice here! I miss you!
Magical and spiritual are perfect words to describe what I’m getting at here – some intangible *something* that’s aligned for connection.
Years ago I watched a performer whose shtick was to balance huge, rough stones, one on top of another, with each one only touching the next at a single point. You’d look at the finished stack and wonder what force could possibly keep the stones from tumbling down.
But the connection I’m thinking of here is that the performer took all the time he needed (sometimes *painstakingly* long) to feel for that point of alignment. Once he found it, hundreds of pounds could rest on a point the size of a pen. I’m pondering the power of looking for those points of alignment all over in my life, patiently waiting for them to appear, even if it takes far longer than I’d wish. Without them, the stones – my plans, goals, endeavors – just fall down.
Comment by Kristin — May 4, 2011 @ 8:01 pmThis really rings true for me, Kristin. I have been trawling through past journals and, among other things, I can see that all my yearnings were truly answered but it did take time. In some cases I can see that certain things needed to happen, there were particular things I needed to learn, or I just needed to ride something out. But in many other cases I feel I will never know why they unfolded in a particular way. My guess is that it has to do with the universe working in mysterious ways, and my own story being inextricable from everyone else’s.
Comment by Kat — May 4, 2011 @ 8:15 pmThank you for shining a light on this beautiful aspect of being in the world.
Kat, your words here are pure poetry. YES. To everything you said.
Comment by Kristin — May 4, 2011 @ 8:24 pmThank you KathyB, Kristin and Kat you have added thought provoking insight for me to ponder. :)
Comment by Shandeen — May 5, 2011 @ 9:18 amAnd all of you wise women have given me more to ponder.
I have come to believe that everything is as it should be in terms of timing. Just yesterday, I was talking to my 17year old daughter about a few events she was hoping to attend but cannot for one reason or another. I said to her that she will be exactly where she needs to be at each moment. I have “missed” some important events in my own life, only to find out later that thing happened or were said that I definitely did NOT need to see or hear. It was perfect. I have had countless times on trips when I missed one train only to sit down next to the perfect travel mate on the next one, where I stopped to look into a store window for a few seconds and then turned around and saw someone I needed to see or avoided stepping into the street when a taxi came careening past.
And so it is with life: all the conversations and happenings and missed connections and made connections that have brought the greatest depth and richness to my life. Timeliness is a wonderful thing to understand. The challenge is to simply wait and trust that all things will work out – right on time – especially when the waiting is difficult or none of “the signs” seems to be pointing in the right direction. Even now, I am waiting for, hoping for, praying for certain situations to change, but as I wait, I am okay. I am learning lessons here and now. I am well. When the time is right, in the fullness of time, answers will come, a change is gonna come, and it will be perfectly timed.
I go back to this saying over and over: all shall be well. all shall be well. all manner of thing shall be well.
Comment by GailNHB — May 5, 2011 @ 2:40 pmGail, I breathe a deep sigh as I read your words. They make my whole body relax.
And I simultaneously wonder how action fits with this worldview. I have a deep sense that all IS well somehow, even as I believe with all my heart that we create our world together, and have huge effects on all of it – our own inner lives, and the broader world that holds us. How to hold these two things in tension somehow…to trust that all is unfolding as it needs to AND that that unfolding involves some tough choices a lot of the time, and conscious, necessary moves to effect change.
I feel like an easier route would be to think that there is no “everything as it should be” and it’s all up to us to try to get it right, OR to sit back passively, letting life happen to us and our world “as it should”. The harder route, it seems to me, is that of trust-filled action.
Comment by Kristin — May 5, 2011 @ 11:25 pmKristin, your musings are so true for me in the area of trying to learn photography. I took a class a week ago and at least three things gave me “Aha!” moments: a situation in which using a polarizer made a huge difference vs. not using one; what changing the shutter speed does to moving water, either freezing it in a moment or making it look silky, cotton-candy smooth; shooting a scene in patchy sun (way too contrasty) vs. waiting until the sun was low and the scene all in shade (beautiful). I have taken several classes, read untold many photography books/magazines, spoken with photographers, been told umpteen times all these things, been ‘out in the field’ practicing a whole bunch…but it took last week’s setting somehow for these things to click. I couldn’t believe it! Am I a super slow study or what??? Another guy in the class who knew practically nothing about photography caught it all immediately and had amazing shots to prove it! AAAGHHH! I guess this is where the loosening up and relaxing and not comparing to someone else needs to come in, and not throwing up my hands and giving up, too. Hard…but a good message for me. Thank you.
Comment by BJ — May 6, 2011 @ 9:23 amKristin, I am a firm believer in taking action. Dreaming. Believing. Planning. And then diving in. AND at the same time, trusting that the end will be what it needs to be, whatever it is. Doing my best. I heartily believe in giving my greatest effort to whatever it is I jump into and then letting go of the outcome.
You are right; it is a very challenging balance to hold.
Comment by GailNHB — May 6, 2011 @ 4:51 pmBJ, oh, yes to what you’ve said here! Why some things can come to some people so quickly, and the very same things take so long for others to get is such a mystery. It seems like the alternatives to just loosening up and relaxing into our own pace are far less appealing, though, so kudos to you for working on relaxing.
And huge congrats for the learning that happened last week! Those things sound so satisfying to “get”!!
Gail, I love that sentence: “giving my greatest effort to whatever it is I jump into and then letting go of the outcome”. YES.
Comment by Kristin — May 7, 2011 @ 10:38 amI think you’re right :)
Comment by zimt-peppermint — June 13, 2012 @ 2:26 amI’m often the person banging my head against the wall wanting to say “But I’ve been telling you that for years now!”. Slowly I’m comming to understand that you can’t help someone who isn’t ready for your help yet. And that’s ok, because we’re all like that.