Transitions You Cannot See

When no one knows there is growth but you.

Welcome to Reset Learning Studio, a newsletter to help you reach your greatest potential.

This week, I got the new Covid booster and my flu shot in one go. The next day, I was very fatigued, so tired in fact, that I laid down in the grass and shut my eyes for ten minutes so I’d have the energy to attend the panel discussion I was walking toward. When I got to the auditorium, every seat was taken, with some room in the back for standing.

I thought I was going to fall over— exhausted from the two vaccines, plus all that being six months pregnant entails, but looking at me, you’d never know it. For the uninformed observer, there’s no way to tell that I’m pregnant at all, let alone about to enter my 3rd trimester. If my belly looked more like the norm at this stage, I lamented, someone probably would have given me a seat. Instead, I stood as long as I could but then left before the panel even started.

It was such a small moment. Truly, not a big deal at all, but this whole pregnancy I’ve been bummed about the fact that my bump is so much smaller than what I’ve seen in my friends. It’s such a stupid and silly thing to obsess over, but then I realized that this is why: I am experiencing such a profound change on the inside. My body has created a perfect little heart, the size of a quarter, that is beating and pumping blood through a real, live, cardiovascular system. I’ve been developing a relationship with this baby for half a year now. Everything about the way I see the world has changed. That’s why I’m moving apartments, writing a completely different book than my last, and changing how I prioritize my time and my money. But to the external eye, I am exactly the same as I was before. Something significant and life-changing is happening to me, but NO ONE KNOWS IT.

This got me thinking about how all of us must have this experience, and for many, in much more debilitating ways than I have. To be seen on the outside as one thing, and not understood for what’s truly taking place on the inside. This certainly happens with all forms of discrimination. Being underestimated, judged, and stereotyped on a daily basis. The pain of having to prove who you are to someone who has assumed differently, over and over again. I suppose no matter who you are, your personal, interior experience will never be accurately represented on the outside.

In 2021, About 9 months into writing my first book proposal, I felt so frustrated that I’d spent hundreds of hours working on something with nothing yet to show for it. I hadn’t sold my book yet. I didn’t even have an agent. I didn’t feel comfortable talking to my friends about it, because it didn’t seem like I had anything “worthwhile” to talk about. I was venting to Dev about this feeling of being in-between, and he said, “Think of it as farming carrots. You’ve grown perfect carrots, but they’re all under the surface right now. Just because everyone else can’t see them yet, doesn’t mean they’re not real.” It was so comforting. He reminded me that even though I had nothing tangible to show the world yet, the growth was still there.

Maybe this is how all transitions work. Our hard work is hidden underground with “nothing to show for it”, until one day, you pull the carrots up by their leaves, yank them out of the soil, and suddenly you have a huge crop to sell at the market.

This month’s newsletter goes out to all my fellow carrot farmers out there. For all you incredible people who are working hard toward something new but haven’t yet reached your reward— I want to offer congratulations, awe, and respect for this moment in your process.

They say youth is wasted on the young. I think accolades and praise are wasted on the finish line. When we really need to be seen, recognized, and acknowledged, is when are deep in the muck, still trying every day, with nothing but a small sliver of hope to keep us going. If you are reading this and still in the middle of some big, unseen, transition— GOOD FOR YOU! YOU’RE DOING IT! I am cheering you on. Remember that you’re already growing carrots, even if no one else can see them.

Today, at 2:49 AM, we officially moved into the Fall season. I just got back from an afternoon hike where I wore a coat for the first time in months and saw the reds, yellows, and oranges of the deciduous leaves turning color. The world looks and smells and feels like Fall all of a sudden, but the work behind it, the slow methodical process of the trees losing chlorophyll and increasing anthocyanins has already been at play for many weeks. Just because we can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not happening. It’s been happening for the trees. It’s happening for me and my baby, and it’s happening for you.

Maybe the transitions we cannot see are the most beautiful ones of all.

Love,

Liz

As we navigate through the transition of seasons, use this time of year to:

1. Cleanse

2. Reflect

3. Vision

Clean out your closet, delete old texts, prepare a transitional Ayurvedic cleanse in order to create space for the season ahead. Reflect on the past few months, what worked and what didn’t in order to gain clarity on your vision for the next few months. Create a vision for yourself for the upcoming season and set intentions, goals, and dreams to move towards throughout Fall.

These are some questions I got from my dear friend Sophia Li, and they helped me so much when I was feeling the end of Summer but not quite ready to enter into the Fall. I hope you enjoy them too!

JOURNAL PROMPTS:

1. What were the highlights of my summer? What am I grateful for from the past three months?

2. What were the challenges of my summer? What am I grieving this summer?

3. What is my bucket list for the next three months?

4. How can I intentionally close this season?

5. What am I looking forward to in the fall?

Read:

A really great article on Moving into Autumn with Traditional Chinese Medicine
Life Is in the Transitions by Bruce Feiler

Listen:

How to Figure Out What You Want
Success on Your Own Terms

Practice:

1. Let go of something you haven’t used in the past 3 months

2. Write down what you want to call into that new space

3. Express gratitude for what was, what currently is, and what has yet to be.

Repeat for something tangible (an item of clothing) and something intangible (a habit or belief).

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