WAITING FOR RESULTS

How long do you think you’re willing to sit and wait for the results of your work to bear fruit?

I find we generally have a pretty short willingness to sit in the depth that is required for real transformation, and trust that the work we are doing is enough. It’s almost impossible to do on our own. Early on, when we are practising something new, the results we get tend to be counter-intuitive, and because of the clutchy, needy experience of our modern fast-paced life, we have a hard time slowing down and simply trusting the path we’re on.

When I first started operation smoking hot body (the operation is not yet complete, but don’t worry, I’ll definitely post nudes when it is done), one of the earliest things my nutritionist supported me to do was begin eating more protein. Much more protein. And as a I dutifully did, I noticed that the number on the scale started to increase. Those digits went higher than they had in the past — higher than ever before, climbing up toward 205lbs. I was nervous. I wanted to lose weight and get lean, not gain more weight.

We were doing this because I had been underfeeding my body, and was in the process of converting fat stores into muscle mass (for a whole bunch of reasons, mostly so that the nudes would look good). At first, while we recalibrated my body’s metabolism, things went in the direction opposite that which I wanted.

That’s the game of waiting for results.

Real transformation is a lot like a farmer planting seeds. We have to adjust our expectations and play on a longer timeline.

Our life tends to be perceived and interacted with on a really short timeline — a timeline that is shortening every day. The news cycle is speeding up, the politics of our world seem to operate at breakneck speed, and our willingness to sit and be with what ails us seems to be decreasing at an alarming rate. We have little patience to sit and really feel into what is happening with ourselves.

Instead of being with all of life, we pendulum out to the two poles. We avoid feeling what is present for us as long as possible, and once it’s built up to an unavoidable mountain, we collapse into it, demanding an immediate solution (we’ve spent so long avoiding it, once it’s time to really feel what is there we’re overwhelmed and blown out — we need a solution NOW).

The transformation you seek doesn’t work this way.

It’s a lot more like dropping a rock into the middle of a pond. You see the water ripple outwards, and head off in all directions away from the rock.

And then you must wait.

If you watched those ripples, you would see them make their way out to the shores of the pond, before making their way back to the rock. They’d be diminished, and changed, by everything that they came into contact with along their journey, but nevertheless, they would make their way back.

This is the nature of transformation.

You take on your work internally, and shift the way you’re being, and then you must be willing to trust and continue practising. You won’t get immediate results. And when you do, it’s often worth getting really curious about what’s actually at play.

If a farmer planted a bunch of crops and immediately had a shitload of carrots to eat, he should be a little suspicious, right? Like, are these super carrots? Are these the product of GMO? Are these carrots actually safe to eat, or did they get bitten by a radioactive spider and will now turn him into a supervillain? (Carrotpuncher, whose punches have the power and nutritional content of carrots. I’m writing the book and if you would like to option the movie, please let me know).

Our world is geared towards immediate gratification and operating in the short term. And mastery goes to those who are able to stand firm in the face of that social context.

Do the work. Wait for the results to come in their own time. Keep doing the work.