The beginning pages
A reckoning with 'the timing is the timing'
Welcome to On Becoming, my weekly-ish newsletter that explores what it takes to follow guidance into the vision that’s actually meant for us. Please feel free to share parts of this letter that connect with you, or share with someone you love who could use this reminder.
I’m noticing myself trying to speed up time.
I’m uncomfortable. Again.
There was an invitation into the vision I had been shown for so long. The man I love met me. After two years of being best friends, of healing past heartbreak alongside each other, of confronting our shadows together, of trying to be with one another then separating only to be slingshotted back together once more — he chose me.
In a home in the rice fields of Vietnam, the low hanging, soft clouds stretched out their arms to hold us. They whispered to us, gently, so gently, ‘Won’t you stay here a moment longer to sit and receive what is here for you now.’
Time suspended. The world fell away from our fingertips as we looked into the eyes of the person we were saying yes to, agreeing to let the other witness our most raw, vulnerable parts fully. Don’t look away. Be with me, here, now. ‘Yes, yes,’ we said, ‘yes.’
What happened next is how I’ve come to understand the assignments that follow all yeses to God’s intended visions, as I believe our union is. A different type of work began. New lessons bringing us back into a state of humbleness at the very moment of receiving what we had longed for most.
I watched as he played out the last residual pieces of his mind’s resistance to being so unconditionally and completely loved, without any obligation or agenda or expected reciprocity in the ways he had been taught. His spiral questions of ‘how could this really be?’ His pushback that the plans we spoke of at dim lighted dinners could, in fact, be his life now.
I observed my own internal tantrums, my own mind’s resistance to thinking that he should not behave in such a way. ‘There should be no more wobbles,’ my thoughts insisted. Not after all this time, not after he said yes. Frustration told me that in his hesitation, he was delaying the vision of who we were really meant to be together and what our missions would bring.
In the morning light, I let sun streak my cheeks as I sat with God and asked to be shown what was real and true. I asked for guidance on how to be with my thoughts that swirled in their convictions that all of our resistances was creating a pause, slowing down how our love was supposed to be.
There is no such thing as a pause. A pause is merely an encounter with another lesson. You think you are always meant to go faster, be somewhere more. You are in the more you have wished for, it’s just the beginning pages, that is all.
Here your mind thinks it knows the way because you are in the vision I have shown you. But just because I have shown you the vision does not mean you know the way of its unfolding.
I smiled, I must’ve heard this message 1,000 times. I have put myself once more on a throne that does not exist, thinking that because I have the ability to see visions I somehow have control over their details too. I have run wild believing that knowing the end has also afforded me the rights to figuring out all of the in-between bits too.
I am not the protagonist of this story, I reminded myself. God is. I laughed at my human’s innocence thinking I could understand what our love was even supposed to be at all. I stopped trying to think my way to some sort of destination I assumed we had to arrive in for everything else I had been shown to come true.
I told myself to listen to my guidance and stop responding to my mind altogether. I let go. Not from my mind…but from my body — my body let go of its attachments that I should be anywhere else than where I was right then and there. Presence returned. We accepted one another’s processes. We inched closer. A seed of our love blossomed into a flower, a different kind of flower than the one I had imagined but undoubtedly us.
And now here we are. Again. Contracted. My mind back to its circles that time should be moving faster, faster, always faster.
My love and I are separated once more as I write you from Pai, Thailand.
I have been missing him. I have felt time slowing, stretching between my hands. I am holding it, unsure what to do with it, how to be with it in its current shape.
I am listening to him on a phone call, he is talking about flight details and airbnb options. Dates. Times. He wants to look at the calendar. ‘We should be together already,’ I catch myself thinking, ‘You’re delaying our union, our missions, our joy, what’s to happen next for us.’
I don’t say anything. I’m aware my mind is back to its spiral antics of thinking I am the one who is in control of the timing of our partnership, as if it doesn’t have a natural intelligence of its own. We say goodbye. I call upon God. I ask for help in understanding how the timing playing out really is meant to be the timing.
The timing is the timing because your relationship is part of a bigger web of visions. It’s not time for all parts to move. Some people are still in preparation and the ones to receive from you next are.
No delay is happening, only a rearrangement. You reckon with who you are and what will be at the same exact moment those who will receive from you are going through their own similar processes. The ones who are to receive from you are also tightening their values, their missions, their focuses. It is on purpose this way. Then the bigger web of visions you are still not to know takes form.
You do not have to understand what the bigger web of visions is, all you must know is that you end up together. Your vision comes true. It does not matter when or how.
The timing is the timing. Another great shift is about to occur. Rest while others prepare. That is your own preparation. Rest. Nourish your body. Refine what is left of just yours on your own. This time I have given you is a gift. Rest. Rest. Rest.
All that matters is that you end up together. It doesn’t matter when or how. My face relaxes. I know this is true. I am not actually the protagonist of this story, I remind myself. It’s so much bigger than what I still understand. I let go. Again. My body lets go.
I stare out the window of the house I’ve just moved into, nestled in the mountains. My surroundings hold me once more, providing me the conditions I didn’t even realise I needed to unravel, strengthen, return to acceptance of the portal of time that I am in. I close my eyes and listen to the mountains whisper to me, ‘Won’t you stay here a moment longer to sit and receive what is here for you now.’ Yes, I respond back, yes.
A kitten curls up beside me as I stretch my legs on a navy couch. I gather up all my awareness back into my body. I lengthen my breath, feeling into all the areas of remaining contractions, all the areas that are open, surrendered back to allowing myself to be led. This time I have given you is a gift. More time to be with myself before everything changes once more. ‘You can rest now Alex,’ I tell myself.
My phone blinks a message. ‘I’m thinking of you,’ it reads, ‘I love you.’
A smile forms on my lips. Confirmation roots deeper into my belly, unfurling its branches, traveling up into my heart and anchoring there. It really is happening, it’s just never in the way I quite expect. My smile widens. ‘I love you too,’ I write back.
Wherever you are in your own journey with your vision, I hope you know that the timing is perfect. You are not to go any faster. You could not go any faster even if you tried. The timing really is the timing.
As I am trying to uphold within myself, give yourself what you deeply need right now.
Soon everything will shift. Everything will feel like it’s in faster motion.
For now, stay present in all of its mysterious unfolding,
xx
Alex