We all have those days! Days when we feel nothing is working. When we wonder if we’ve made a mistake in taking the road from ‘familiar’ to ‘unknown’. Doesn’t matter all the strategizing and careful planning we did to get here.
Days when our confidence ebbs; doubt assails and we decide “what the heck” (or entertain such a decision)!
I’m having one of those days! I look at where I am and wonder “did I hear my purpose correctly” and the direction that purpose will take me. It didn’t help to read an early morning internet meditation on “patience”. PATIENCE! I don’t want “patience” - I want action!
How does this relate to the concept of mentoring? It relates because I made a phone call to confirm an afternoon appointment and got a ‘lift’ from a new friend. A new friend who is also new to AWP. I didn’t call to get mentored, but just hearing what she’s put together for us was the ‘good word’ I needed to hear that will carry through this day - and hopefully into the next.
However, my problem is one that is standard for those of us whose primary motivator is ’seeker of truth’ (or the prophetic). We want it NOW! Enough of this waiting around, planning, organizing, networking, etc. It should be happening NOW that I’ve done my part - don’t you think?
From the mentoring viewpoint, let me point out that what usually is going on when we arrive at these junctures in our personal and professional life is that there is a ‘rumbling’ under the surface. A rumbling that we can’t quite wrap our minds around with any clarity - so we take the path of least resistance and assume the worse.
We decide we’ll quit! Now, I don’t plan to quit, but in my thought processes I’ve set that in motion. In reality, what I need to ‘quit’ is feeling sorry for self because ’self’ has adopted a McDonald’s mentality - quick, easy, fast! Roll up to the order station; place my order; roll up to the payment counter and wha-la - there’s my payoff (in the form of a double cheeseburger combo) in 7 minutes or less!
But there’s another lesson to be learned about McDonald’s that fits the life path we travel as we mature chronologically and move through the 2nd half of our journey. Ever get your food and then pay?
Nope, doesn’t work that way. You order; pay; get! It isn’t any different in life or anything we do that has meaning, purpose and ultimate great gain. First the order; then the time of payment in the form of testing/learning and then the payoff.
And it won’t come to us in 7 minutes or less! Trust me, I’ve been there - done that - and am still waiting for the big payoff! And therein, in the interim, lies fallow ground that looks like it will never produce much of anything. I wouldn’t make a good farmer at all. I want to plant the seed one day and go out the next and find a full crop! Or at least something peeking out of the ground.
And when the ground is still barren while the process is occurring in secret, I engage in the art or game of discouragement. Anybody else out there with me in this?
And when the going gets a wee bit tougher and the screw appears to turn a little tighter - I panic!
What I’ve learned - and that’s all I can share with you is from my personal experience and the understandings I’ve gained - is that what you hear beneath your emotional and mental ‘feet’ is ‘rumbling’! The quiet movement of change. The movement that means it’s coming, but it ‘ain’t’ here yet!
In my opinion, one of the greatest challenges to moving from the 1st half of the journey to the 2nd is that the urgency that is part of what brought us to the realization we’re somehow somewhere else in life than we were; is a need to have it happen yesterday! When it doesn’t and days go by without the appearance of any visible activity - we make rash decisions, if only in our heads because we’re listening to our feelings rather than to the rumbling beneath our feet.
These are the days when we need someone to mentor us! To say something that will jolt us out of doubt and discouragement. And I don’t mean pat platitudes! Something that is significant enough to cause us to put on the shelf any mental decisions or actions that might be construed as ‘quitting’ the process.
I often wonder if Moses and Aaron had days like today? I’m sure they must have expected Pharaoh to roll over and play dead the first time they asked. Didn’t happen that way and it took at least 10 asks before the job was done. If Moses was like me, he probably started questioning the voice that flowed from the burning bush. However, he had someone with him, someone who in addition to being the one with eloquent speech - may have been the one that said, “Moses, I hear rumblin’ beneath our feet and I tell you; stay in there, it’s comin!”
I’m so grateful for the conversation this a.m. from a friend who, without knowing, knocked me up the side of the head. That’s one of the things that mentors do well - knock us gently up the side of the head.
If I were to mentor those who come here today (or tomorrow), I’d say that when plans go ’screwy’ and things we need in motion; don’t move. . . REMEMBER, that there’s rumblin’ beneath our feet, even if we don’t hear it! Because how we react to the ‘messes’ that will invariably come our way, is just the thing we probably need to work out in our live so that what we are meant to do and want to have happen - will!
So, having said all the above, I’m going out to ‘water’ what’s been planted and pray for sun.
If you’re in a ‘funk’ and need a word from a mentor - take heart! There’s one somewhere in your life. Seek her out! Talk honestly to her and then let her words sink in and take root in the soil of your doubt or discouragement.
There’s nothing like a little sweet talk to mellow the soil!
Author Resource:-
Linda S. Fitzgerald, M.S.Ed, has a passion for enriching, empowering and encouraging women to achieve their God-given destiny. A professional therapist by background and destiny-design coach, she is chief architect for the web’s newest online COMMUNITY for all women whether over 40 or not! Please visit http://www.awomensplace.org/blog for great information on topics of interest to women transitioning through life’s most exciting season. Checkout http://www.awomensplace.org to join dynamic women of excellence as we journey through the 2nd half of life together!
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