Trust in the Process
Sometimes the detours in our path ultimately lead us in the direction we were always meant to go. I was recently a part of company wide lay-off at my full time health-tech start-up job. After a year of dwindling resources, multiple rounds of lay-off’s and increased pressure, I can’t say I was surprised to receive a calendar invite on Wednesday morning with our HR team. “We’d like to thank you all for the contributions you’ve made” they explained, as I watched my teammates' faces fall along with my own.
I had been one foot in and one foot out for months, juggling the task of building a growing yoga community while working 9-5 glued to my laptop for eight hours a day. It felt like I was living in the ultimate state of contradiction. Instructing students to take the leap and trust their path, while holding on with a death grip to my comfort zone. Running morning meetings and excel spreadsheets, and then escaping to the mountains to decompress from a lifestyle that was draining me.
After a few weeks of processing, I started to consider how I actually wanted to live and what kind of things I wanted to shape my days. Presence, awareness, kindness, ease, love, intention.
Sometimes we need a slight kick in the ass to move in a new direction. I was battling a scarcity mindset, hashing out the things that are important to me, and building confidence in my ability to stand on my own two feet. I was jumping in ice cold water, practicing breathwork, and fighting tooth and nail with the limiting thoughts in my own head.
The lay-off happened to coincide with a move to Boulder, Colorado. My husband and I had been traveling out west for the last 3 years, bouncing from air b&b to air b&b, apartment to apartment, national park to national park. We were sleeping in strange places, making new connections with people who had been traveling, and exploring so many different types of community.
These experiences with discomfort shifted my perspective and allowed me to realize that we don’t need much to create happiness. We landed in our cabin home, tucked into a grounded neighborhood. My entire body took a deep breath.
About two years ago, we met an elderly man at a campsite in Utah, after spending the night bundled in layers of sweatshirts, my ski gear, coat and hat and even burning my clothes in the fire trying to keep warm. I was trying to escape the cold in the women’s bathroom (admittedly cranky) when I noticed his wife, a slight smile on her face brushing her silver hair in the clouded bathroom mirror. Her energy radiating love, she gave me a simple “good morning, neighbor.”
It wasn’t anything profound, yet it left an impact on me. How did she find this state of contentment in such an uncomfortable environment? When I walked back outside, I noticed her husband walking away from mine with a smirk on his face. While he passed me, he simply proclaimed: “you should enjoy your dog more.”
I found out he had been having a conversation with husband while I quietly co-existed with his wife. What he said to him has stuck in my mind ever since: You can only expect a harvest where you water and weed your garden. It’s an everyday action we must take in our relationships with ourselves, others, and our communities.
I’ve decided to trust in the process. To water and weed my garden for the sake of using my hands and my heart, and less for the type of harvest I might find. To lean more into the act of creating and less into the outcome or expectation.
I hope that you can feel the love I have poured into this digital experience. It’s an everyday act of care and kindness, and I hope that it brings you as much contentment as his wife had brushing her hair in a cold, Utah bathroom in October.
