Learning Patience + Quotes to Live By #4

Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.
Ralph waldo emerson

If you have been following my blog, you will know I am on a path to rediscovering who I am outside of being “just a mom”. As I move through this time of growth, I am learning patience. Patience with myself and patience with others.

So, that is where today’s quote comes in. In growing, we must also learn patience. It is easy to get caught up in wanting instant gratification for the efforts we are putting into something like self improvement. We journal, we read, we meditate, but we still falter along the path of life. I, myself, feel like a teenager again. Scrambling to figure out how my piece of the puzzle fits into society. Wanting to get everything figured out, like, yesterday, so I can finally relax. Making mistakes along the way and believing it is the end of the world. Afraid to make moves for fear of what the future brings.

I am learning patience for my journey from my kids. I look at my kids and am proud of how self aware they are at such a young age. They are moving through their path of self discovery making mistakes and learning from them. They are showing patience for their journey in a way I never did at their age. There is a lot to learn in watching teenagers grow into adults and discover (and rediscover) who they are.

We go through all this change during our teenage years and then what? Stop growing? Become the person we ought to be for the rest of our lives once we hit 20 years old?

We Are Nature

Each year is another ring in a tree’s truck but we as humans are somehow supposed to move through adulthood unchanged- same career, same hobbies, same life. And when we finally have had enough, we enter “a mid-life crisis” rather than acknowledging a new season in our life.

We are nature and nature is us. We grow and adapt. Our seasons change us and we grow back tougher with lessons learned. We trust our seasons to take us through times of hibernation and times of blossoming. In times of hibernation the growth is under the surface, almost undetected. When it is time to blossom, we show off what we have learned.

I think this is where I got stuck. I created an identity that served me fine as a young adult but as I enter a new season in my life that identity no long fits. The fear of changing who I was caused me trauma at first. I was lost and began to question everything I knew. But as I settle into my time of transformation, I understand that “identity” does not define “me”. I am still here. I am just growing a new branch. Unfurling some fresh leaves. Building another layer of growth.