There is No Time Limit on Becoming

Lately, I’ve been sitting with a quiet realization: much of what exhausts us isn’t life itself; it’s the pressure to arrive somewhere we think we should already be.

To be clearer.
To be resolved.
To be done.

Even when nothing is “wrong,” that invisible urgency can leave us tired.

At some point, the question becomes:
Where do we stand when we stop pushing?

At the end of last year, I moved through a couple of weeks that felt dormant.
Not depressed. Not wrong.
Just quiet.

There wasn’t much motivation to create or connect or be involved. I didn’t try to fix it. I let the season be what it was.

Then January 5 arrived, the first official day “back from the holidays.” And with it came a familiar energy: overwhelm. A growing to-do list. The sense that I should be able to provide clarity, direction, a map forward.

Instead, everything felt like it was on steroids.

I don’t know what to do first.
I can’t see how to sequence my day.

I felt exasperated. I could feel myself spinning in my thoughts.

Starting. Stopping. Restarting.

Each spin creating more and more overwhelm.

After sitting in that for a while, I did something simple. I took out a piece of paper and wrote down everything that was looping in my head, every unfinished thought, obligation, and worry.

By the time I reached item sixteen, the list read: quit.
Item seventeen: hire a coach.
Item eighteen: ice my knee.
Item nineteen: ice my back.
Item twenty: meditate while doing eighteen and nineteen.

Those last few items felt different.
Caring. Restorative. Possible.

So I started there.

I iced my knee.
I iced my back.
I sat quietly and breathed.

I didn’t solve the list. I didn’t plan the day. I didn’t generate clarity.

And yet, something shifted.

The energy reset.
The tightness softened.
And from that small act of returning to the body, to care, and to what was true in that moment, the rest of the day unfolded with surprising ease.

What had started heavy and uncomfortable moved into clarity, spontaneity, and even joy. Inspiration returned, not because I chased it, but because I made space for it. The day took shape with meaning, not force.

What I’m discovering is that becoming doesn’t happen through striving forward, or according to any set timeline. It happens through returning.

Returning to the body.
Returning to what feels honest.
Returning to the quiet place where we can hear ourselves again.

There is no time limit on becoming or returning to what’s true.

We don’t meet ourselves once and get it right forever. We meet ourselves again and again across a lifetime. Each time from a slightly different place, with new context, new tenderness, new clarity. Becoming isn’t a straight line. It’s a rhythm of remembering.

When we return, when we’re grounded in what’s true, creation no longer needs to be managed. It doesn’t have to be forced or performed. From there, creation becomes natural, alive, and life-giving.

When we stop trying to get somewhere else, we may find that life has been quietly creating through us all along.