If you’re not ready, you’re not ready.

There are times when you just need to shit or get off the pot. There are times when you’re just not ready yet.

To move, or to let it gestate?

Neither is right or wrong. Both have merit.

Lately I have been sitting in a season of both. I feel the push to create and also the pull to let things simmer a bit longer. To not take the pizza out of the oven too soon and have to eat a soggy centered crust. The worst.

This is what I call being in the cacoon mush. Things are happening but they are not yet fully formed. The liminal space that holds the possibility for something new and different, and needing the patience required to allow the new to emerge.

I have grown my capacity to be with the ups and downs of this because I know that forcing it only makes it worse, but it’s a special frustrating hell when you feel ready to act and yet also know it’s not time to fully leap yet.

Last year I took a course that included Polarity Dynamics. This is the concept of the dance that exists between two opposite but complementary forces to create movement, balance, and growth. When things seem black and white, either/or, this concept invites us to look at both sides of the coin and use both to move beyond our current feelings of stuckness. In practice this looks like noticing what “side” you are choosing to sit in, acknowledging the opposite/complimentary “side”, and then playing with how you can use the “opposite side” to bring some movement to your current reality.

As I sit in the mush, I am reminded that I can actually work with the mush vs feeling helpless to it.

Enter Mary Oliver and the Artist’s Way. The mother of having a dedication practice. What if I create a dedication practice to the fact that I am not fully “there” yet in order to create a sense of movement without trying to force myself over a finish line that has not revealed itself yet? What if I can show up in small ways while awaiting for the butterfly wings in my cacoon to bust through?

In all my years of coaching and personal development, the smallest changes we can make are usually the most sticky. But it’s easy to forget when we are swimming in the mush. This post is an homage to the micro-dedication practice I have been in as I experience the liminal space between where I have been and what is readying it’s arrival. It has reminded me to dance between the possibility and the patience in a way that feels less jerky and frustrating, and more balanced and alive.

Feeling stuck can feel so real when we’re in it. Sometimes we just need a different way of viewing the situation and the dedication to trying something different within it to loosen up the gears and start flowing again. If you’re in a season of mush, I’d love to hear how you’re playing in with it. :)