Resting In What Is

This week I got to spend some time with my girlfriend holding her baby for a few hours. While I'm there we talk and she rallies around the house doing things that she normally doesn't do without the baby in tow.

Watching her and her family often makes me think back to my own raising and the differences. My friend continually encourages her children and tells them what they can do. I on the other hand continued to hear time after time what I couldn't do. "I wonder what I would be like if I had people around me while I was growing up telling me all the things I could do instead of telling me all the things I couldn't do?" I said to her. She said I just need to take a break from working so hard to make things happen.

That's when I realized I needed to rest in what is. Here we are in November. It's a time to be thankful and I find my mind racing to figure out a new project which always has to do with the chocolate shop. My brain continually runs in a loop of how can Sweet Mona's be made better? What can I do to ensure that it can financially sustain itself? How can I bring in more people? How can I ensure we make it through the five months of road construction during the 2nd Street Project? Will I be able to keep my staff levels up after the holidays? Where is the best place to advertise? Should I really buy a building or should I try to expand off the island? Or should I just sell it?

I hear the rumblings of a high school counselor saying "you can't do that, your grades in science just aren't high enough to get into a good school."

Even now tears well up in my eyes thinking why couldn't that counselor "You can do anything you want to with the right training and with a little help. This is how."  He and others didn't and so I have spent a good part of my life thinking I can't and working up to I can do it.

It's time to rest in what is. Rest in what I have become, what I have built, who I am and just see where it all goes. It's time to stop exerting so much effort to force things into existence. It's time to just rest. Rest in what is. Give thanks for what is. And continue loving what is.

My life is amazing--sweet really. I have a husband that loves me more than I think anyone has ever loved me. I have children that have grown up to be amazing adults. I have beautiful grandchildren. I have a shop that allows me the opportunity to share the sweetness of chocolate. I have great employees. I live in a great community. I have wonderful pets. I have wonderful friends. This is what I must rest in, releasing the fears of what might be, or could be, and just let them be.

That's me and my brother up there when I was a little girl. The picture was taken in June 1962 and I was just over a year old. It was before I heard the words you can't. I've come a long way. it's time to rest in what is.