I remember being in first grade planting bean seeds in a paper cup. Everyday I’d run over to the windowsill where my cup showed no sign of progress.
After several frustrating days of nothing happening, I burst out during quiet time, “What can I do to make my plant grow?!” My teacher said, “Water, sunlight, and patience.”
At the time, it seemed like I had control over only one of those things, and it sure wasn’t patience or sunlight. And Miss Turner cautioned me about the water.
Then the day came when I saw the light green shoot push its way out of the soil and eventually grow its first leaves. I was surprised by the variability of the 
different plants; some emerged sooner and others a bit later.
Every seed is an individual. It is called to sprout within its own timeframe. And so are we.
I see our inner growth and healing in the same way. But like the seed, when nothing appears to be happening on the surface, there is a huge dynamic unfolding deep in the soil.
Being human, though, we often get anxious and impatient waiting for that big breakthrough.
When you have an aspiration, your focus is usually on your outcome or goal; getting well, growing a business, seeing a new relationship developing over the long term. And while it is important to know where you are going (like I’d like my bean seed to eventually grow beans), it’s equally important to give value and time to the work occurring underground.
This isn’t always so easy because the work beneath the surface is done with a kind of blind faith. We have to have some sort of trust that each seed has within in it, all the necessary elements to become the plant it’s meant to be.
That the time in the dark soil is actually where the healing and transformation is taking place, and it needs the right balance of water, sunlight and patience to emerge.
That’s where you come in.
As Florence Nightingale said:
“It is often thought that medicine is the curative process…Surgery removes the bullet out of the limb, which is an obstruction to cure, but nature heals the wound… And what nursing has to do in either case, is to put the patient in the best condition for nature to act upon him.”
Most health crises have some element of chaos. And the sympathetic system is engaged from all the stimulus and input. In the case of inner transformation, it’s our minds racing ahead to how we should be doing this or that to get to our goal.
With all that inner and outer busyness, we don’t see that transformation and healing are actually more of a parasympathetic activity*.
Plateaus
Plateaus in health care are often seen as “nothing happening” as well. But the same could be said of plateaus as for the time in the soil. Plateaus are resting places. Points on the journey toward the desirable outcome. A time to take stock of the hard work done, before pushing onward.
This is when the plant’s leaves soak up the sun and the flower petals have opened. For a while, they receive. They are not in production mode. It’s parasympathetic.
For us on healing and transformative journeys, this is the time to pause. Even celebrate the efforts to arrive at this place.
I see this often when I’m teaching clients mindfulness meditation practices, Pilates or a holistic nursing skill such as guided imagery. I use this as an opportunity to reflect on how far they have come and that the next step awaits them.
Every living system needs a balance of the parasympathetic system and sympathetic system**. Too much of one over the other leaves us either stagnant in inertia or on overdrive.
The next time you are working with someone who is impatient with their healing or transformative process, check in to see if they are “in the soil” phase or on a plateau.
Now, as a guide through the these different (and usually not identified) aspects of healing and transformation, know that when you offer your care (water), warm encouragement (sunlight) and hold the vision (patience) of their seedling breaking through through the surface of the soil, you are offering signposts through the fragile yet powerful pathway of healing.
What’s been your experience in guiding or receiving support for healing and transformation?Please share below!
Until next time,
Love,
Jackie
*Parasympathetic Nervous System: The division of our autonomic nervous system that regulates the functions of digestion and slows the heart rate. Relaxation Response.
**Sympathetic Nervous System: The division our autonomic nervous system. that accelerates the heart rate, constricts blood vessels, and raises blood pressure. Fight, Flight, Freeze Response