Today I’ve been contemplating my business and the whole dilemma of when to concentrate on marketing and when to just be in the pure creative flow of it. This is a well-known conundrum for artists too, I know: when to promote yourself and when to just be in the zone and draw/paint/write etc. for the love of it.
I’d love it if I had hundreds of people following my blog and on waiting lists for my workshops. My Future Self says I will one day, but in the meantime I feel strongly I need to trust and let things reveal themselves to me in their own sweet time.
I’m reminded that we don’t stand over a newly planted seed, arms crossed, grumbling, “Well, come on you bugger, grow!” We can only water it, expose it to light, wait and trust.
Oh, but how strong is the urge to hurry things along! Where does this need for speed come from? In a way knowing our Future Selves can exacerbate this: “I now know for sure what’s possible, I know this is Me, so bring it on!”
One great mantra that really helps me is:
“There will be a beautiful unfolding here today”
When I remember to live my day that way it’s almost magical how things do always seem to work out fine – even when I think something had ostensibly ‘gone wrong’. For instance: a client is late and in that time I manage to catch a colleague just before a meeting that, it turns out, I need to give some input to. That sort of thing. It’s as if someone knows the big picture and exactly whats needed and, if we’re willing to be their puppet, everything will work out beautifully!!
The natural order of things is well-being. We are hard-wired for it. If we hurt ourselves or become ill, our body’s instinct is to heal itself. Every living thing wants to grow and thrive – it’s a primal instinct that is inate in all of us. And if we allow it, growth will come, at exactly the right time – as long as we don’t get in our own way.
So this is my uplifter for today – to remember the seed and let the gorgeous flower of my career bloom in all the magnificent ways it wants to, without me trying to second guess it!
This post was such a timely reminder for me. I’m in that push-push stage with my new business, though when I really think about it, I have no idea why THIS time is the right time. I’d just decided that I’d played about for long enough and spent enough money on learning skills etc, and now was the time to GET SERIOUS. But the pressure I’m now putting on myself is making me feel ill. There’s no beautiful unfolding going on here. And the fun is starting to go too. So I will try to stand back, water the seed, and wait. That is so against my nature, but all I know is that the other way doesn’t produce better results. Things get done but not always for the right reasons. So thank you for this reminder to stand back and ‘allow’ a little.
Oh I know that feeling so well Claire! I’ve put this blog under ‘Impatience’ in my Library of Emotions because sometimes things just don’t seem to be going as quickly as they should – and yet, often, we’re going at the speed of light. Like the famous swan analogy, we might not look like we’re doing much on the surface but underneath, it’s all happening. We just need to remember that the outward appearance of things is by no means a measure of how much things are moving for us.