This year has been a constant lesson of letting go of my timeline for when I want things to happen. I'm finally learning to lean back and trust the process. Every single time I lean back and wait, I learn something about myself that I couldn't see before because I was pushing too hard. Each time I learn to wait, something unexpectedly beautiful happens to me.
Last month I drove to Colorado for a two-week fall break with my daughter, my sister, and my brother. Every morning I woke up to a Colorado sunrise over the rocky mountains. Every day I walked out into crisp mornings and felt new life awakening every cell in my body. I rode up into the mountains and blinked back tears of gratitude over the absolute wonder of where I was and who I was with.
When you learn to love life for the way it is and stop insisting on it to be some way that you think it should be, you discover hidden treasures. When I came back to Nashville, I was full of fresh hope that the pain of this year isn't the end of me after all, but simply the birthing process of new things.
Even though you thought it should be another way, even though it “should be different”, even though they shouldn't have done what they did, even though you made mistakes that you wish you could take back, even though your timeline may be all messed up... there is so. much. beauty in accepting it, leaning back, and letting go.
LEARN HOW TO SLOW DOWN
One day I was driving back to my brother's house from Denver when I got stuck behind a slow dump truck. I couldn't pass this truck because I was on a two-lane highway and cars or turns kept obstructing the ability to get around him. There was no reason to be in a hurry, but I felt irritated that I was going slower than I wanted to go. I kept getting too close to the back of the truck, risking a cracked windshield from the occasional rock that would come flying at me from the back of the dump truck.
Finally, I slowed down and let an ample amount of space stretch between me and this truck. I looked in my rearview mirror as cars lined up behind me, sensing their own irritation that we were all going so slow. None of us could pass this truck in front of us.
It wasn't until I started fully enjoying the beauty of the drive and turning up my favorite song that the truck slowed down and turned off of the highway. After I got to my brother's house, I realized that my arrival wasn't even affected very much by this slow truck, nor would it have mattered if I had been late.
Life is really like this, too. Sometimes things just take time. Often space is required for new things to develop.
When you can let go of your timeline, let go of the need to reach your resolutions when you wanted to, letting go of your need for closure in order to move on, letting go of your need to figure things out by a certain time... When you let go of your expectation that you'll have grown a certain amount by a certain time, you'll be able to look back and appreciate how much you were growing all along. This isn't a competition, this is a process, and everything in this process is here to help us become the people that we're created to be. It all belongs.
LIFE IS LIKE MAKING BREAD
Life is like making a loaf of bread, the old fashioned way.
Growing up, I loved mom's homemade bread. When my family lived in Idaho, she ground the locally-grown wheat berries into flour every week and baked 9 loaves of bread. Our family of 10 people ate 9 loaves of bread every week. That's almost a whole loaf of bread per person.
My mom got her wheat berries from local farmers, so they had to be sifted before they could be ground. This was a great job for my brothers and I. On a windy day, we would take a bag of wheat outside and pour it slowly out of the bag above a bowl. As the wheat fell through the air into the bowl, any unwanted husks would blow away in the wind.
After sifting the wheat, we would take it inside and sort any gravel out of it. This was time-consuming, so we liked to do big batches of sorting the wheat in order to build up a good supply.
After all this work, the bread dough still had to be made! Since I was old enough, it was my job to put the wheat through the grinder. This was another slow process, so I often daydreamed as the berries slowly fed into the grinder and turned into fine wispy flour.
My mom had a big commercial mixer to mix up all the ingredients for the bread. We weren't allowed to get too close to the mixer as it churned because it could easily pull in and snap an arm. Once the dough had been mixed and beaten, it was ready to sit still and rise for an hour. When the dough was rising, no one could touch it or bump it. Once it had risen, I helped my mom form the bread into loaves. Then it was time for all 9 loaves to bake in the oven.
All of this bread making took time, so much time. And my mom made this bread every single week.
To this day, I still remember that there was nothing like the satisfaction of biting into a hot, crusty slice of bread. There was nothing like the taste and smell of that goodness when the warm bread was absorbing the cold slabs of handmade butter that was melting... there's still hardly anything better than biting into a freshly baked slice of bread when the butter is half melted, half-hard and cold.
My mom wouldn't typically let each of us have more than half of a slice... after all, there were only 9 loaves of bread for a large family for the whole week. So I always nibbled at my half of a slice, sometimes closing my eyes to enjoy every single crumb.
My mom was famous in our community for her bread. Other women asked her what her secret and I remember her shy smile when she blushed and shrugged. I don't even know if she knew that she knew what her own secret was. She made the best bread because she took her time. She instinctually knew just how long to mix it and let it rise to get the best balance of density and fluffy. If anyone tried to rush any part of the bread-making process, they couldn't end up with that delightfully fluffy, nutty, thick slice of warm bread that always left you wanting more.
GROWING IN THE IN-BETWEEN SEASONS
Good things always take time. Learning how to do things well takes a lot of mistakes. It took my mom years to master her baking skills. She said she learned from baking with older women in our community and paying close attention to how they baked. It took a lot of bad batches of bread before she began to learn how to make her magically amazing bread.
Wednesdays represent the middle of our growing seasons. They represent the periods of when we are trying to get somewhere, to learn something new. Wednesdays represent those seasons when we're sifting through the wheat or waiting on the bread to rise. Wednesdays represent the slow days when we're stuck behind a slow truck that we can't get around.
The secret to winning in these times is to give up that motion that you need to get to where you're going when you want to get there. The secret to winning to give up your timeline when things obviously need time and space. The secret to winning is to lean back and choose gratitude for the part of the process that you are in right now.
ONE DAY YOU ARE GOING TO KNOW THAT IT'S WORTH THE STRUGGLE
One day, the truck is going to turn off the highway in front of you and stop slowing you down. You're going to be able to press your pedal down and fly again without anything holding you back. One day, you're going to bite into a thick slice of that warm, nutty bread slathered in cold butter and it's going to be worth every bit of the time you worked and waited.
In the meantime, enjoy where you are right now. Right now is important, more important that you even know.
Don’t try to rush what cannot and should not be rushed, otherwise, it won’t turn out right.
This morning my friend Laura posted a quote on Instagram:
“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” ― Joseph Campbell
And it was yet another confirmation of what this current lesson is teaching me. Let go of the timeline you wanted so you can own what your timeline actually is — it's a dang good one, too.
Let go.
Everything's working out for your good.
You're already winning.
