Other than proposals, I didn’t write anything in 2022. I missed the creative process, and it was a banner year of Doing – a jettisoned professional rebound after COVID. I drank gratefully from the firehose and felt pride in my accomplishments and tenacity.
Until I didn’t.
Because too much Doing without the internal replenishment of Being is depleting.
By December, I was a wet rag in over-drive, not a comfortable place to be. With family especially, I was listening to fix things (a “buttinsky” as my Dad used to call me), which really isn’t listening at all.
And I should know listening. It’s my professional career and vocational practice.
I also know that people are naturally creative, resourceful and whole when we dance in this moment with them – and let go of our ideas for them. This is how we become a bridge to facilitate their discoveries and solutions.
However, easier said than done when we’re drowning in our to-do list.
The Being Balance
This past January and February provided me with a needed reprieve and Being balance. Being can feel like invisible work, especially when judged against our Western culture’s emphasis on accomplishments. Yet like the North Star, Being is where we magnetically realign with our personal purpose and fulfillment.
For me, Being includes my contemplative practice, walks in the woods, reading, cooking and gardening. There’s another happy place of Being for me and yet when a colleague asked what I do for relaxation, I was too embarrassed to say: OMG, I just finished studying executive culture coaching and have a year-long coaching intensive ahead. I’m so excited!
I have an inner critic who tells me I’m too old to keep learning like this. And yet learning is what roots and grounds me. If I am feeling excitement, joy, challenge and some anxiety all bundled together, I know I’m just where I’m supposed to be.
Being is a place of openness that holds space for what really matters to us, because we are deciders before we are doers.
And Then There’s Becoming
Out of this cumulative time of doing and being emerged a Becoming – this new website. For those of you who have walked this path, you know it’s a huge and exhausting undertaking. And it was time. I needed to show up more fully as me because I’ve grown, stretched and become in greater alignment with my purpose and passion.
Your Turn: So How Does Your Garden Grow?
How’s your Doing—Being—Becoming? What needs to be tended, weeded or watered? What would you like more of? Less of? What do you long to say yes to? And in service to your values and fulfillment, where do you need to say no? I suggest you one (and only one) focus as a YES and one (and only one) focus as a NO, and see where it goes.
Whether it’s winter, spring, summer or fall, a season of renewal always awaits. Here’s to what makes your garden grow!