Cindy was a slow poke.  We always talked about her being ‘slower than molasses in January.’  It was fun and she loved that.  She took her time.  She always indulged in her time and felt as if she had all the time in the world.  And she was right.  She did have all the time in the world and she languished in every single moment.

Most of us condense time.  We try to stuff as many things into a moment, an hour, a day, a week……., as possible, as if it’s our last. Cindy lived like every moment went on forever and each day a piece of loveliness to be unfolded delicately.  She had no sense of time being limited or finite.  She knew her time was open and flowing and that she could linger for as long as she wanted within what ever she was involved in.

Whenever we asked Cindy if she was ready she would always say “I was born ready!”  She would always make us laugh with her expressions.  And I guess she was born ready.  Cindy was ready for her life and her timing and her way of being.  The rest of us were on a different sense of time and readiness.  I think back now and see that she truly was living her own life in her own time and in the way that was right for her own being.  Now I see that most of us are on an externally imposed schedule or clock that is foreign to our natural self, and that is the source of many problems for us.

This is my daughter who I talked about an earlier post. Her name is Hannah and she is in college.  

I am always saying goodbye to her.  You may say that I am always saying hello as well.  I’m focused on the goodbyes right now since she just left again.  She left for college two years ago and before that was traveling with friends to different countries and wonderful places around the world.  She has good friends and developed a strong group of friends in high school.  She was gone a lot as she got older in high school.

She came home for the holidays and left for Boston to meet a friend.  They flew to Miami to meet a group going to the Dominican Republic for a few weeks.  When she came home she turned around and went back to college.  Lots of goodbyes were in that time.  Saying all of those goodbyes was hard for me.

When she was little she didn’t want to leave my side.  In fact she would often hold onto my leg and not let me go.  She didn’t want to go to pre-school, so we didn’t have her go.  She really didn’t want to go to kindergarten or first grade.  My husband and I believed in the theory that if we held our children close as long as they wanted to be close they would eventually push away when they were ready. That is what she has done.  She is now so secure that she has developed strong wings and is flying gracefully through her life.  She is secure and knows what she wants and has the confidence to get it.

You could say she is ready.

Each step along the way my husband and I listen to our kids to make sure they are ready for what they need to do.  If they aren’t we don’t push them.  It seems right.  It feels like the best way to help them develop their own strength and support.  To feel ready for what they have to accomplish seems important.  This is not to say they don’t push themselves, they do and they must.  We all must, and we must be ready to push ourselves or we will fail in a way that may not be helpful.

I’m talking about an underlying sense of support in us that we must have in order to let go of the familiar and risk the uncertain.  That is what I think true readiness is.  Knowing that you have the support within and around your self to handle what is ahead.  True creativity and evolution lie in that uncertainty that is essential for the growth of an individual, community and our planet.  Where most people fail at evolving is they are not truly ready to take the steps forward they are taking.  They do things out of fear or desperation or a mentality of ‘they know it worked in the past so it must work again.’  They have not developed a strong base of support in themselves to be able to listen to what is right for them to be ready to move forward.

My daughter knows what is right for her.  She took her time to be ready for where she is now and she takes the time she needs to make her next steps in the world.  Cindy was ready too.  She was born ready and she was ready to leave when she did.  Her life was a testament to the essence of allowing time to unfold and lay a foundation of support and strength so that we all can be ready to love and live in ways that are right for us.

Today, allow yourself the time to feel ready, really ready, by allowing the ground underneath you to hold you up and be your base to fly.  Don’t go until you’re ready.  You still have to take a chance, only now you will have your wings to help lift you off the ground.

I’ll meet you in the sky.

Love Lessons