Meaning in the Middle

Take a moment to realize how great it is that you’re working on it. Then step forward and offer your best efforts yet. — Ralph Marston

Sometimes I have compared how life “develops” to the prepping of sourdough. It is not really a process which can be rushed - not if you truly want the best results out of it anyway. You mix what you’ve got, you stretch and fold a bit, then you let it rest and then you repeat this same circle of action several times. It doesn’t look like much at first, but give it time and a little bit of patience and a few hours later it has begun to completely transform into something a whole lot more workable - usable. Some days my dough rises beautifully. Other days not so much… but either way, I’m still baking.

These days, I always try to keep a corner in my day for a little bit of a mental tune up. Just a momentary pause where I remind myself that “I am working on it” - that I am not finished, not failed… but rather, busy becoming. The “middle space” is equally as important as the start and finish lines, which I think we all often forget. It is that space where effort is the point - nothing else.

Life is never a straight line. It’s a garden maze behind an old house with hedges too tall to peek over, turns you swear were straight a second ago. You can’t bring hedge trimmers to “insist” your way through. You walk. You laugh at yourself. You double back when necessary… and then, somehow, somewhere along the line you stumble into a clearing and realise you are very different to the person who stepped in. Braver, softer, tougher and definitely an inkling wiser.

I have often taken note of how kids handle it all so naturally. They don’t wait for permission to be themselves and no moments are considered wasted. Pirates at breakfast, astronauts by lunch, barefoot explorers by supper. No branding exercise. No “personal positioning.” Just a full strength self with jam and crumbs stuck to their chin. I admire that. So I have been practising a bit of unlearning where I can… peeling off some of the layers that have accumulated over the years, or attempting to at least.

I ask my heart first, not my mind or my to do list. “What feels true to me today?” Then I try and allow that question the freedom to wander around in my head, the way a child would and if money wasn’t a thing and time didn’t bark orders. I can vividly remember what lit me from the inside out when I was younger… before I was conditioned to dim it all.

I came across a line once that said, in essence, “you’re working on it - and that’s a good place to be.” It resonated. There is dignity in the trying, plenty meaning in the small moves along the way and no shortage of value in a day that does not necessarily look like some kind of highlight reel.

In my opinion, that is how the path is supposed to unfold and reveal itself… one real step, then another. Keeping your courage near, your humour on hand, and your hands, mind and heart open for the good that is on its way - but more importantly than all of that… the understanding and acceptance that exercising a little bit of patience for yourself and your progress and remembering the value of the entire journey with all of its facets when you finally see it as a whole picture.
Whatever you did today is enough.

Whatever you felt today is valid. Whatever you thought today isn't to be judged. Repeat the above each day.” ― Brittany Burgunder