Our unfolding - or that of anyone else’ -  is something that cannot be forced. Like the story of opening the cocoon that killed the butterfly, we need the time and experience to build our strength in order to fly. We need to exercise our muscles, to fall and get back up again before we learn to walk confidently in the world, let alone fly. Eventually we don’t even have to think about it. It becomes second nature.

Like pushing a river, forcing solutions often comes back to hit us in the face. Whether we’re trying to make a relationship work that simply isn’t, or trying to launch a business before we’re deeply clear on the vision, in most life circumstances we are often far better served in stepping back to breathe a bit before we put our foot on the gas - contrary to what our “just do it” culture often suggests.

As a serial entrepreneur, if I wasn’t actually operating a business, I was engaged in the business of trying to create the next one without much, if any, pause in between. Once I attempted a pause by going to Bali after I sold a business and had to come home having caught pneumonia. I suppose touring a country I’d never been to before wasn’t exactly a pause…

As we’ve discussed here before, that place of not knowing can feel like being in a large body of water without shore in sight. And remembering to pause and breathe, to re-center, can be the farthest thing from our minds if we’re in a state of near panic.

What do we do, when we don’t know what we’re supposed to do??? What do we do if doing is not the answer? How can we possibly just be when there is so much to do?

This is the circle I’ve often found myself in - with seemingly no way out.

Although I’ve been here before and it has continued to feel like a challenge living in a society when our worth is so defined by what we do, the key seems to be remembering that being requires allowing. Allowing others’ opinions fall away. Allowing our own judgement to fall away. Allowing ourselves to sit with the discomfort and keep breathing. Allowing ourselves to do it all imperfectly. Allowing ourselves to repeat this cycle as many times as necessary until something shifts. Within us. Or outside of us. Something that unfolds and reveals with luminescent clarity what was there all along, but we simply weren’t yet ready to see.

Not an easy, or necessarily clear process. But if we’re willing to engage it, the foundation, the strength, the muscle of love, value and clarity that will be revealed will be one that is based on a foundation of our true strengths. One based on a real knowing of our worth. Defined only by ourselves and coming to know the inherent worth and lovability we came into this world with, but has taken decades to uncover and reclaim. It’s in there. It’s under there. But until we can allow ourselves enough stillness to experience it at the deepest levels, we won’t trust it long-term. Sometimes “Just Do It” is a slogan limited to shoes and clothing. Then, we get to stop, breathe and acknowledge how far we’ve come and remember that we are love. We are loved. And we always have been.