Series: Nature, Preservation and Exploration. Episode: 3
Growth unfolds at the speed of the seasons, not our schedules.
Last week, we talked about grounding – about roots, belonging, and what holds us steady when life begins to move.
This week, we turn our gaze upward – to growth itself. But not the kind we can rush or measure.
Because the earth doesn’t hurry through its seasons. It unfolds in its own time. And maybe the greatest lesson the natural world offers us is this: that patience is not waiting for life to happen, but allowing it to arrive as it’s meant to.
1. The Rhythm of Becoming
The seasons never question their timing.
Spring doesn’t envy summer’s bloom, and autumn doesn’t apologise for letting go. Everything changes according to rhythm – a pace that makes sense to the living world.
As humans, we’ve stepped out of that rhythm. We expect transformation to happen on demand – instant healing, instant success, instant peace. But the truth is, real growth doesn’t happen in leaps. It happens in cycles: in the quiet expansion and contraction of life doing its slow work beneath the surface.
Patience isn’t passive. It’s the most active form of trust – a willingness to let life take the time it needs to become what it’s meant to be.
2. Learning from the Slow Work of Nature
In the forest, growth is almost invisible.
The same tree you pass every day looks unchanged, yet within it, microscopic movements are constantly unfolding – sap rising, roots spreading, bark renewing itself grain by grain.
This is the lesson of the slow.
Nothing meaningful happens all at once. Ecologists call this incremental adaptation – how ecosystems evolve bit by bit, finding balance through time, not through control.
Our lives follow the same pattern.
Every small act of consistency, every gentle return to something you care about, is a form of adaptation. You don’t have to see the change for it to be happening. You only have to keep showing up.
3. Why We Resist the Pace of Nature
We live in a world that rewards speed – the fastest result, the biggest leap, the next goal. But nature doesn’t operate in milestones. It operates in cycles. What looks like stillness is preparation; what looks like delay is timing.
In psychology, this mirrors what’s called process-oriented growth – focusing on development itself, rather than outcome.
When we rush, we detach from the process and measure our worth by how far we’ve come. When we slow down, we reconnect with the living rhythm of change – a rhythm that doesn’t need proving, only patience.
The tree never worries if it’s growing fast enough. It simply grows when it’s ready.
4. The Beauty of Becoming
Becoming is not a single moment of transformation – it’s a lifelong conversation between what you’ve been and what you’re becoming.
Some days, growth looks like forward motion. Other days, it looks like rest, reflection, or starting again.
Nature teaches us that nothing blooms all year, and that’s what makes each season sacred.
When we accept that, we start to live with gentler expectations – not of perfection, but of participation.
You don’t need to bloom constantly.
You just need to stay rooted in becoming.
5. Living in Your Season
Every season has its purpose, even the ones we don’t enjoy.
There are seasons of planting, seasons of waiting, seasons of blooming, and seasons of letting go. The trouble begins when we judge the season we’re in or compare it to someone else’s.
Nature never compares a seed to a tree or a river to the sea.
It simply allows each to be exactly where it is – fully, unapologetically.
When you honour your current season, you stop forcing growth that isn’t ready and stop abandoning growth that is. You learn to listen for the subtle signs of change within yourself, instead of demanding a version of life that doesn’t match your timing.
Living in your season means trusting that where you are is enough – and that growth is unfolding, even if you can’t see it yet.
🌷 The Weekly Pinky Promise
“This week, I promise to trust the timing of my growth – and let life unfold at its own pace.”
Maybe it’s slowing your morning down by a few quiet minutes.
Maybe it’s stepping away from urgency to remember that presence is progress.
Maybe it’s trusting that not rushing doesn’t mean you’re behind.
If you’d like, share your reflection using #MyPinkyPromise – a reminder that growth doesn’t need to be seen to be real.
🌾 The Wild Action
“Plant one act of patience by moving at the speed of nature.”
Maybe it’s watching a sunrise without taking a photo.
Maybe it’s tending a plant without counting its blooms.
Maybe it’s walking a familiar path and noticing how much has changed – slowly, quietly, beautifully.
Each act of patience roots you deeper into life’s rhythm – the one that never hurries, yet never stops becoming.
💗 Additional Resources for Connection
- Braiding Sweetgrass – Robin Wall Kimmerer: Lessons on reciprocity, care, and time.
- The Slow Fix – Carl Honoré: Reclaiming patience as a strength, not a weakness.
- The Hidden Life of Trees – Peter Wohlleben: The long rhythms of forest communication and growth.
Closing Reflection – The Gentle Revolution
Growth doesn’t arrive all at once – it unfolds.
And maybe the work of our lives is not to force it, but to join it.
Because just like the seasons, we are always becoming – quietly, cyclically, beautifully.
The forest never doubts that spring will come again.
Neither should you.
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