Today we ask that you examine your beliefs about “making things happen.”

There is a notion that, in order to accomplish things, you must be in a self-punitive state.  You must “get your act together.”  You must “whip yourself into shape.”  You must “get your butt in gear.”  These very phrases reveal an aggressive, self-punitive energy.  The idea of “getting one’s act together” implies that what you are about to do is, in fact, an “act.”  It is not authentic.  It is not the real you.

So: maybe it is time to drop this idea that one must abuse one’s self in order to accomplish things in life.

Do trees “whip themselves into shape” when they wish to grow, or produce fruit?  Does the sun have to “get its act together” in order to bring light to the cosmos?

Things happen.

You have all had experiences in which certain things in your life have come to you without “making it happen.”  And you all have also had experiences in which you have tried and tried to make a certain thing happen, and it just won’t.

Creating and growing requires receptivity, encouragement, and nurturing.  

This is universally true.

In order for things to grow, the ground must be fertile.  Seeds need the right soil.  They need water and light in the correct proportions.  All gardeners understand this.

It is really the same with everything.  If you want something to grow in your life, you must create the proper environment for it.

“Whipping yourself into shape” is really a very poor method of self-gardening.

You are the ground in which your experiences grow.  If you desire more growth and expansion in your life, then you must make yourself a good environment.  You need to fertilize your own soil, and give yourself water and light.  You need to give yourself a trellis on which to climb.  You need to pluck your own weeds, and lovingly prune yourself if you’re growing in too many directions at once.

Timing is also very important, as it is with gardening.  Everything has a season.  If you plant at the wrong time, you will not experience the desired outcome.  In order to plant at the right time, it is necessary to be very sensitive to yourself, to know your own seasons, to know when it is time to plant, and when it is time to lie fallow.  It is crazy to expect yourself to continually produce.  That is poor soil management for the self.  You will burn yourself out, just as overfarmed soil loses its fertility.

Other times, there are fertile moments, and it is good to plant.  If you are sensitive to your own patterns and rhythms, you can feel this.

Really the best thing you can do is just to lovingly cultivate yourself.  Then, good things will surely grow and ripen within you — all without you “making things happen.”