Just because something is inevitable doesn’t mean it’s easy.
I used to think having an idea I believed in was the hard part, and once I had it, acting on it would be easy. When you get an idea that you know you must act on – a thought you must put into words, an expression you must create – and you know there is no choice but to bring it into being, the real challenge starts. It’s a process not dissimilar to pregnancy.
If you have been trying to get pregnant for some time, it is a relief when you do. But things don’t get easier just because the eventual child is all but inevitable. You have the knowledge that birth is coming. You also realize how much has to be done between here and there. There are moments of panic when you consider you have no nursery, no diapers, no baby clothes, no stroller, no idea what challenges may come, no knowledge of all the things you might have to do to care for the child. There are other times when you feel completely at ease, resting in the knowledge that what you have created will come to fruition in due course. You have a vision of life with a child, and you know that vision will be fulfilled and somehow everything you need to get done will get done. Of course, you still have to do it.
The seed of an idea that moves you, once planted, will – must – grow. You know it must be created, expressed, brought into the light. But how many things are there to do first! How can you handle them all? How can you fill that space between now and then with the things that must precede the birth of the idea? How can you prepare to raise and nurture it once it emerges? Yet you know you will, because the idea is going to happen, just as the child is going to come. Nature must run its course.
The mental, emotional, and spiritual challenges of pregnancy reveal the unique process of moving from potency to act; from knowledge of a new life, through gestation, to birth and beyond. The near inevitability of the outcome is joyous and overwhelming. Being ‘pregnant’ with an idea has many similarities. It’s right to experience the tension between complete relief that the new creation is coming, and uneasiness with the knowledge of all that must happen first. Your job is to do two contradictory things at once: relax and let it happen, and actively ensure the process and preparations move forward.