Brilliant One,

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Growing up, I had about 8 teachers I loved, and they loved me back. But one in particular had me figured all the way out: Mrs. Conway. I had her twice: in 4th and 6th grades. Her daughter was my friend, so we spent a lot of time together at school and afterwards.

Mrs. Conway knew me very, very well.

And because she knew me so well. Mrs. Conway frequently asked me to sing a song she thought might have been written for (or about?) me: The Patience Song.

The chorus went like this:

Have patience, have patience

Don’t be in such a hurry

When you get impatient, you only start to worry

Remember, remember that God is patient, too

And think of all the times when others have to wait for you

The reason she thought this song was for me was that I was a kid on a mission. All the time. I moved fast and I thought fast, on every subject and through every project. Okay fine, maybe that hasn’t totally changed. But I was the kind of kid who used to pray for a fast-forward button on life so we could get on with things.

And like the song said: My impatience did cause me to worry. But there were a couple of other things the song got wrong:

1. I was, actually, faster than the other kids at school. So I didn’t think others ever had to wait for me, and
2. I was the most impatient, by far, with my own little self and my own little life.

Whether it was a piano piece I was practicing, or a speech choir performance, or a talk I needed to give, or an entire year of school: the urge to get it done, check the box and be onto the next was sometimes so strong it felt like I became my impatience. My teachers learned not to put me in group projects, because in my impatience with the other members, I’d just do the whole thing myself.

I was heartily rewarded, time after time, for this fast-forwarding through life… until the system sort of broke down. I graduated from high school early, got married very early, had kids incredibly early, went to grad school and law school super early, got divorced early, and by all accounts was successful… until I wasn’t.

Because when you fast-forward through life, impatient for what’s next, you don’t actually experience the beauty of gradualness: the growth, the deep learning, the skin-thickening, the purpose-unfolding and the life skills that you can only develop with time and experience.

Fortunately, life teaches us what we need to learn. And after years and years of fast-forwarding and constantly running into my own inner roadblocks, life sat me down. Life slowed me down, with a couple of divorces, a series of health problems, and oh yeah: that Not-So-Great Recession.

I was “successful” from the outside looking in, but I was running into enough inner friction, enough of my own patterns that weren’t working, and enough Resistance to take a pause, recalibrate and reflect on my life’s path thus far.

That’s when I could see that I had gotten very far in life, accomplishment-wise, through force, effort and my own might. But at the same time, just like back in school, my impatience had hardened into an extreme, dysfunctional self-reliance. I had no time to wait for others, or for their process of life to unfold. I was uninterested in being dependent on others, which felt much riskier than doing it all on my own.

My impatience had isolated me. But life was teaching me what I know now: that we thrive and create and grow and love and live best in community, in connection with our Source and with each other. I learned that every relationship is a golden link in the chain of my good, because I learn from every single experience.

As I did this life look-back, it became crystal clear that every big breakthrough, powerful pivot and massive blessing that had supercharged my joy and my life were all things I could not have and did not make happen under my own power.

I’m a woman of action with a spirit of excellence, don’t get me wrong. I listened, I showed up and I stepped out. I stayed the course when that felt right and I put the time in. Still do. But it was always a carefully placed person, word, seeming miracle, unearned grace, invitation or opportunity that cracked the code: that unlocked the most prosperity, the most beauty, the best career, the thrilling-est adventures, the most love and the most joy in my life.

It was never my personal contriving or striving. Never my personal force.

The endless list of reckless blessings I’ve received? I received. I didn’t force them to happen.

The beauty of all this dot-connecting is that I’ve learned to slow down, and to trust life. I now know that everything is always working out for me.

I now know that I’ll never be “done” with what I’m here to create, so the fun of life is letting the process play out, and letting myself be delighted by how things come together along the way.

I’ve learned not to be a woman of perpetual motion, but rather to harness the leverage of inspired action: to invite and receive inspiration, then milk it when it comes and back off when I fall back into the habit of nose-to-grindstone.

This is all part of my practice of Radical Acceptance. I aim to radically, without exception, accept and allow every single thing about myself, and my experience of life, to be what it is—including the process and the truth that everything takes time.

I even accept and allow the unwanted bits, including the unwanted emotions. Including the fact that I’m wired for impatience.

Radical acceptance sounds like it’d be passive or demotivating. But this is one of the most transformational paradoxes I can ever teach: When you practice accepting everything about yourself, about life and about others, a bit shift takes place. You release the struggle against what is—a struggle that occupies vast quantities of human life force and comprises a massive chunk of all human suffering.

And when you release that struggle? Everything changes. It’s like your natural state is the state of thriving to which you’ve been aspiring. The struggle against the process was a kink in your ability to live in your natural state.

When you release the struggle, you gradually return to who you really are: a loving, beloved, creator.

Now, I know some of you wonder what I even mean when I call myself, or call you, a creator, so let me address that here. I don’t necessarily mean that you are a creative: like an artist, designer, or craftsperson, though you may also be that.

Here’s what I mean. Humans are the only beings on this planet, that we know of, that have the power to think an idea or a thought about something that doesn’t exist in a way others can see or touch… and then cause that thing to exist.

At my house, we’d call that a superpower.

Sit with that. Revel in that. That’s core to who you are. You can turn your thoughts into reality. That’s what I mean when I talk about creative power or the creative process.

And because that’s who we are, it’s natural to get impatient with that creative process. It’s natural to intensely feel the lack of what it is that you want to create, especially in the wake of cultural storylines that tell us we must produce, perform or conform in order to be okay, or worthy.

But here’s what I now know: being creators doesn’t mean we’re here for the output, for the stuff we create. We’re here for the process of creating, for the unfolding and expansion and growth and joy and momentum of the process. That’s the joy of life: the creative process itself, not the things we stack up in the bank or hang on the wall. And it only gets joyful when you realize:

• that you’re not alone,
• that everything in the universe will line up to help your creative process once you decide what you want to create,
• that we are always expanding in the direction of wellbeing, and
• that you cannot ever make a wrong decision: you can only move closer to joy or closer to clarity on how to move closer to joy.

If you identify with the plight of Little Tara, the Impatient Creator, I want to leave you with 3 spiritual mic-drops. Here’s #1:

Small things grow.

This is a law of the Universe and we don’t have to force it to happen. In fact, all along the way and as a result of the process, we grow, too, if we learn to relax, accept and allow our experiences to clarify why we’re here and get us ready for the wonders to come.

Someone shared #2, a related mic-drop moment, with me last week, as it perfectly encapsulates what I teach and how I aim to live:

You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work-in-progress.

I’ve learned that the best platform for creating a life you love to look at is not to gear up for battle, or nitpick yourself into discontent, or to fret about your current lack of what you desire. Rather, in the words of one of my own teachers, the way to create a life you love to look at and love to live, along the way, is to practice being both:

Satisfied with what is and eager for more.

Mic: dropped.

Head up + heart out,

TNN

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