For those of you who missed my guest post on my dear friend’s, Mynde Mayfield, blog a couple of weeks ago, I’m posting it here today. The post lays the foundation for things I hope to chat with you about during the month of March, so I wanted to be sure you had a chance to read it…

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So, here we are, the last day of February, and you’ve fallen off the New Year’s resolution wagon. Or, heaven forbid, you never even made a New Year’s resolution! Either way, you’re beating yourself up about it. You wanted to change something about yourself you didn’t like and now you’ve screwed it all up. You weren’t perfect, so you chucked it all!

I’m getting ready to make you feel much better about all this…really, I am.

I’ve come to think of change, or evolving, less as fixing what we deem as wrong and and more about embracing what feels right for you and making more of that happen. So give yourself a break, because it’s all peachy at any given moment, even if it doesn’t feel that way right now. It’s all about an ongoing process, so I’m suggesting you may need more time to figure out what you want to do for yourself instead of what you think you should do or have to do. Hence, the idea of dormancy. In the winter, at least in my neck of the woods, the trees are bare, the fields are brown and all is right with the world. And, when the time is perfect, new growth will emerge.

The value of dormancy struck me only after moving to rural Kentucky. I had never liked winter, but here I came to appreciate not only winter, but the beauty that each season has to offer instead of focusing on the aspects of each season that I had considered undesirable. I could see the rhythm of nature’s wisdom in the fields of crops and understand the different stages of the growing cycle. The field that has been dormant all winter is rich with compost and nourishment for the new crops – just the fact that it has lain undisturbed has made it richer and more able to support the new plantings. Once the seeds are planted, they are nurtured with sun and rain and loving care. Sometimes, there are challenges – drought or too much rain or a late frost or extreme heat – that’s nature for ya! In good time, the crops will be ripe and the goodness of all that care can be harvested and enjoyed.

We are part of that cycle of nature, too. It’s interesting that we pick these arbitrary “special days” to begin afresh – January 1 being a popular choice. But, why not the first day of Spring or the Jewish New Year, which is in the fall, or my very favorite day, March 4th?

Or, how about when you’re ready?

Just like in nature, the seed begins to sprout when the conditions are most supportive for it. Allow yourself the freedom and compassion to do the same – to rest, to lie fallow, to ponder what’s really important to you -and trust that you will know when it’s time to plant the seeds in that field that is you.

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Please leave your comments, questions and ideas below. And, remember, “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” -George Eliot

Lisa :-)