“The interior shaping of ourselves (and our work) often takes longer than expected.”

Yesterday I spent the day in a group exploring the power and the possibility of one’s own agility with the relationship between intimacy and leadership. It was a powerful proposition that concepts, historically culturally dissimilar, have a capacity to be in service of each other. I might even go so far as to say that they have an essential relationship.

There are copious notes that I look forward to pouring over and ingesting more fully, but the quote above is what I woke up with this morning. It’s a pretty common theme for me these days. I find myself returning to some version of this like a mantra. I’m not surprised by it, because I’m still not totally comfortable with it.

I have a strange relationship to time. I seem most concerned about it when I am least engaged. When I am deep in a thread of experience, I rarely pay attention to it. In my current practice that requires patience and a longer timeline, there are waves of engagement that I find myself riding. I am changing the way that I look at value and metrics in regard to my growth, more specifically growth over time in service of my leadership in the world.

I’m not quite syncopated to the rhythm of it yet. There are moments where I hit notes of fear or concern and disconnect from that trust and faith in the power of a slower pace and notice myself flailing.

I get judgmental. I lash out. I retreat from my leading edge of compassion and curiosity. I stop being open to invitations from others, and close off opportunities for intimacy. This loop can whip itself into a big ugly mess. I’m well practiced at that king of personal derailment.

So the gentle reminder about the power of patience is just the cue I need in these moments. The act of agility is to ride the moments of derailment without fully falling off the tracks. The faith in the value of taking time and slowing down has everything to do with my success in carving the turns in my own deepening practice.

I am quite grateful to not be alone in this endeavor.