The Process

Episode Transcript

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The Mom Training Podcast with Diana Ballard

 

Diana:    What’s up ladies? Welcome to spring. Isn't it glorious? Man, I don't know where you're from, but we've got birds chirping, we've got things starting to grow. I have flowers coming up that I never even planted. I mean, there's bulbs all over my yard that had been planted by who knows when years ago, coming up. Man, it's gorgeous, isn't that. Oh…

 

  And then I also have people in Arizona, you're starting to get hot. You're starting to get up close to 100 degrees. Whoa… All right. Yeah, that's getting pretty spicy and you guys get pretty hot over there anyway. But it is springtime.

 

  Springtime is a time when new beginnings, things are growing, a lot of animals are born. I mean, there's a lot of wonderful thing and symbolism, with spring. And how we can utilize the springtime idea to take our own life and have it grow into what we want it to.

 

  Now, I have already planted some seeds which are supposed to be winter seeds, and they haven't done crap. I planted them, two to three weeks ago, and nothing has come up yet. And I'm like, “I have no idea what I'm doing”. This is my second year of gardening. I planted, the majority of what I grew last year, I just had bought from plants from the store. I had started some seedlings in my house, with a grow lamp. And I did not want to have that in my house this year, just because it took up so much space. And these are supposed to be seeds that I can plant out in the ground and they should do something. Right?

 

  I'm totally new to being a seed planter. So, every day I go out and I check on them, and I walk around them, and I look at them. Now, I will say that we still had some cold days, even a little bit of snow sometimes, so maybe they're just not getting warm enough. I don't know, because seeds have to be in the right environment. They have to have heat. They have to have the sunshine. They have to have water. They have to have good soil that they're in. They can't be planted too deep… yada, yada.

 

  I'm learning about seeds, right now. And it's been interesting because each time that I've tried gardening, last year and this year, it's taught me so much about the symbolism of spring, and of growing things. And so, I just wanted to share with you a little bit about that.

 

  The things that I've been looking forward to come up are - carrots, which we planted 100 carrot seeds; at least 100 carrot seeds, probably more. I would not be surprised if there was more. And, like 18 sugar snap peas plants, and five chard plants, and five kale, because I love kale so much. And again, nothing. I’m like, “Am I doing this crap wrong?”

 

  And what I learned and had to remind myself of is, there has to be something that's not right with these seeds. There has to be something that's not 100% balanced or in the right conditions for this seed to thrive. Because, I mean, there's lots of people that put seeds in the ground and they grow like humongous, like corn plants. My neighbors do it. Like I've watched them. They plant seeds in the ground, and their crop comes up. So, I'm like, “Okay, either I planted too early, yada, yada, yada, yada.” Right?

 

  So, what my garden is currently teaching me, at the moment, is that I must be patient in all things. And patient with the process, whatever process that we're going through right now, what result we're trying to accomplish, or who we’re trying to become, or the things that we're trying to build. And there's tons of things, building better relationships with our husbands, with our kids, being more financially stable, getting our house in order. I mean there's lots of goals that we have. And a lot of times, we can be planting these seeds and be trying to build something. And we can look at that ground and be like, “Dude, like nothing's happening.” Like, I am working my hiney off.

 

  I come out and look at these things every day. I water them. I've made sure the soil was really rich and I have turned it and been really feeding it. I mean, I've been trying everything possible to make this be a good environment, and nothing's happening.

 

  So, again, I'm new. I don't know how long it takes for a seed to germinate, or how long the root is growing down before anything comes up top, or I just have to wait a little bit longer for it to get just slightly a bit warmer and those seeds are going to start sprouting up. I mean nothing. There's absolutely nothing coming out. I’m like, “Okay, this is a good lesson.”

 

  This is a good lesson about patience. This is a good lesson about letting the process work itself out. Now, that doesn't mean that we can't be doing things. Again, like the ground has been prepared. The soil is rich. I went and tilled up the soil before I planted the seeds, so it’d easier for the roots to grow. I mean there was tons of preparation going into putting the seed. I made sure they were good seeds. I planted them how deep they were supposed to go. There's things that I did and have been doing to try to give the seed, a better chance.

 

  But sometimes, things may take longer than we expect them to or want them to. So, I don't know if you found yourself ever in the position where you're like mad, angry at the process because you're like, “I can't just keep doing this thing over and over and over again, and there'll be no reward.” Which again, we want to find joy in the journey. There's joy in going out in the garden and be watering things, being outside and being hopeful. But say that I went out there for like years, and these seeds never did a thing. I mean, you kind of find yourself being like, “So, what is wrong here?”

 

  Hopefully, you wouldn't wait years. You could figure out other ways or talk to other people and there's things to learn, ways to grow, how to be a better gardener. Maybe you put too much fertilizer in it… You get what I'm saying? Maybe there's something wrong with something, with the process.

 

  But I think sometimes we can sit there and be like, “Why is this taking so long?” Like, what am I doing wrong? Is there something wrong with me? Is there something wrong with… We start to kind of look at that. But sometimes, it might be that we just need to wait. That we just need to continue doing the same things.

 

  Here's the other thing that throws me a lot, is when we start to have a little bit of success... I'm sure you've heard this before… When you start to have a little bit of success you stop doing what gave you the success. And that could be with like weight loss, that could be with money-making things, building a following of people.

 

  I mean there's lots of things, like if I just decided to stop watering the garden, like things started coming up and, “Oh, this isn't fun anymore. I waited forever and I've seen these little sprouts come out but man, they're not doing much.” Like I'm just going to skip a day of watering. And then maybe I'll say, “Oh, I forgot again”, and all of a sudden, your plants burn up and you’re like, “This is dumb… What? Like I just wasted so much time.” No, it's also because you stopped doing what needed to be done, which is where consistency comes in, which is where we’re trying to practice the things that are necessary for there to be success.

 

  So, from this lesson today, let's walk away with a couple of things. One, trust the process, be patient in the process. And you can be sitting there looking at that soil, being like, “I know I planted seeds in there, like one of them has got to come up. One has got to come up.” Like, “Man, something’s wrong.” And we got to remember that we don’t know everything behind the scenes. We don’t know everything that’s happening underground. We don’t know that it’s just waiting for a little bit more warmth or sunshine to like pop up through the soil.

 

  And then, to be able to be consistent when we start to see progress, of watering and taking care of these things that we're building and growing. And you’re kind of babying those sprouts and saying, “Come on, you can do it. Let's keep going.” Okay, I see that it’s growing a little bit, and I’m going to see that as a good thing. I’m going to just keep being consistent and doing what I need to, to make these things grow. Right? Maybe some of them still do die. Let's be straight up. Maybe our skill level is not where it needs to be. Maybe we over water… Do you get what I’m saying?

 

  There still could be things that give us some resistance in making a garden of life grow. But that’s why we get second chances. That’s why we get another year to try it. That’s why we don’t give up the first time something dies or something fails. So, plant those seeds ladies, of what you want. Keep doing what you need to, to help them to grow. And trust the process, as things are growing, as spring does its thing, it gets warmer. It’ll come if we don’t give up.

 

  We’ll see you next Tuesday on The Mom Training Podcast.

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