Divine Timing

Sometimes it’s not always the right time.

The right time for what? For whatever it is we think it may be time for…

The last couple weeks I’ve been with the sensation that I have no vision for my future. In different moments this made me feel insecure. Shouldn’t I have goals? Ambition? Big ideas? Some ideas? …. Where is my vision for my future? What do I want? What is calling me forward? Where am I going? What’s my direction? With so many unanswered questions about my direction, it’s easy to fall into self-judgment or compare myself to the imagined effortless lives of other people who know exactly what they want and where they are going and how to get there.  

But do I always need to have a vision or direction? Maybe it is a moment of quiet. A moment of just being present with what is.  So this is what I’m chewing on for now. When is it a moment to go forward powerfully with all our arrows in hand, and when is it a moment just to simply be, right where we are, with no other thought in the world.

Timing is a great and mysterious player in our life. Although we like to think that we are totally in control and can manifest anything we want whenever we want- it doesn’t quite work like that. Time requires us to humble ourselves in front of it. Our human minds can’t possibly understand the complexity of Divine Timing.

In an audiobook I was listening to, the narrator told a story of herself as a child. She said she was quite naughty. It also turned out that her mother had developed cancer. Her mom would say that she needed to survive in order to be there for her daughter, who was in her eyes a total mess. It wasn’t until her mom was cancer-free that the author simultaneously let go of her self-destructive habits. Coincidence? We can’t know. But the author thinks not. She couldn’t see it at the time, but looking back she believes her unwillingness to change was linked to this creating purpose to fuel her mom’s desire to survive.

This is the mystery of time. Even when we know we want change. Even when we feel we are ready for it. Sometimes all of the acting components are just not quite ready yet.  

However, I don’t think timing is completely out of our hands. I believe we can meet it. We can have a conversation with it. We can do our work to face the fears that stand in front of us, so that when the other moving pieces are ready, so are we - allowing Divine Timing to dance it’s dance through us.   

In response to this contemplation with all it’s questions from the past week, a glimmer of insight arrived in one of my art explorations. I grabbed my pastels and had no plan of what I was doing, my only goal was to keep choosing colors that felt good next to the other colors, so that’s what I did. And it was fun. And easy. And I also kind of liked the way it looked when I was done. The phrase ‘Do the Just Right Next Thing’ entered into my mind. Don’t try to figure out ALL OF IT…. just do the next thing that brings me joy, and the next, and the next. I also think this is a perfect moment to give a shout out to the book I collaborated on with Markus Scott-Alexander called, ‘The Just Right Next’. which will soon be translated and published in Japanese, woohoo!

So next time I feel a bit stuck, or overwhelmed, or not sure where to go and what to do, I will take this phrase from my pocket, and see where it guides me. And I will remember to ENJOY the path. Because that’s what this whole thing is about. JOY JOY JOYOJOYJOYJOYJOY JOYYYYYYYYY. JOY. Joy

JOY.

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