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maxinekemp0

Growing a new idea

Updated: Apr 25



Sometimes people ask me what the little sprout is for on my website. I love this little icon because it signifies almost all that coaching is for me and so as I sit here with the early morning sunshine pouring through the window, the jackdaws chortling down the chimney (it's where they like to nest) and spring well and truly in the air I feel a Spring inspired blog arising from wherever such things come…



There are times in life when we find ourselves feeling stuck. Feeling stuck often looks to me like, having more questions than answers. Should I leave or stay in this job, partnership, or friendship? How can I ever break free from this pattern or addiction, I’ve run out of ideas. I see what I’d like to change but how, when life as it currently looks to me has so little opportunity for that to ever occur?



There have been times in my life when I thought I could see or feel a kind of shadow or vague shape in the mist, of what it was I did want rather than just what I didn’t. Still, when I then saw all the things that seemed to stand between me and it, my dream would soon begin to fade looking out of realistic reach and I’d begin to question whether I really did want it or not. Safer to stay where I was for now.



Feeling stuck usually occurs when we have simply run out of ideas that look feasible or doable within our current thinking. We’ve plumbed the depths of knowledge we already have and nothing there quite seems to inspire us into action.


All the thinking we currently have is often made of past experiences of when it didn't work, or the stories of the difficulty others have experienced. It's designed to keep us safe in the world, rather than launch us into creative orbit. So if we are to break free we are going to need some new thinking but often we don't know where to get it from so we go back to the old familiar box again and have another rummage around just in case there's something in there we missed

 

Lacking an immediate answer or in fact any answer seldom feels like a useful place for a mind to be and so we soon get busy looking for some. Heaven forbid we should be without an answer for too long. Suspended in the empty space on ‘not knowing’



If you are anything like me, for many years this state of affairs just didn’t feel acceptable, reasonable, safe or particularly useful. What possible use could there be in not having an answer? Shouldn’t we ‘know’ what to do all of the time and if we don’t, had we not better immediately find out? If there is a space where an answer ought to be, then I’d better get busy filling it with one as soon as possible. Or that was my story anyway.


This scramble for answers to alleviate the feelings of discomfort I experienced from not having answers, on occasion resulted in some rash decision-making I later found I regretted. Once I realised this could be the case I then avoided making any for a while instead, as this seemed safer. Learn how to love what you have already. Yes, that's the answer.

 

When we are looking for answers to a question or attempting to solve a perceived problem, we begin to search our mind, sometimes frantically for what we have in there that might be useful.



Sometimes, often with a fresh question we may have just the thing and it feels clear right away, but some questions seem more recurring and some problems more persistent. What about when we feel like we’ve run out of ideas? Where do we look?

 

So back to spouts and spring and the like… I am a gardener. Well ok, let’s get real about this. I am a person who likes pottering about in the garden. Nothing slows my mind down and fills my heart more than just interacting in some way with what’s out there.



Sowing, tending, hoping, marvelling, often despairing. I often describe myself as ‘a random gardener’ I do my best to put things where I hope they might like it best and create the right conditions but I’ve never turned it into a science like some I admire.  It’s always clear once everything appears, or not, that Capability Brown I ain’t, but it brings me joy and I am forever grateful for anything that appears and then agrees to stay a while.

 

So what’s this got to do with being stuck?

 

If we want to grow something brand new and beautiful, we have to plant a seed and to give that seed the best chance of germinating we need to offer it a bit of help.



Before we plant a seed we need to clear the ground of weeds, perhaps till it a little, and ideally, we’ll choose or create an open space where the light can get in. Then we sow the seed and wait…

 

When we are stuck and feel devoid of answers, it is the sprout of new and fresh thought we are seeking to grow…

 

Being stuck is about having exhausted all our current thinking.  At these times we often go to others to see if they have any new ideas and sometimes, they do, but it’s worth remembering that they can never be your ideas, and an idea that’s right for you and will endure the test of time can only come from you and your deeper quiet place of knowing. A place you can get to know well and trust over time.  

 

So how do we grow a brand-new thought?



Well, what do we want? Perhaps we are looking to clear the whole bed and start afresh or perhaps the new things we plant are to complement and flourish alongside what is already there, but either way, it’s something new we are seeking to grow and in this instance, it’s a seedling of new thought.

 

Seen from this perspective, we can begin to liken it to what we are doing in coaching.  First choosing a good spot and tools to work with, then picking the kind of seed we want to plant. We prepare our ground, digging it over a bit first perhaps, finding or opening up new space with

nothing in it so we can plant our seed, shining some light on it and watering it a bit.



Then as we quietly pay attention to the space, where nothing is yet, a miraculous thing starts to happen and we can see something beginning to form.

 

The trouble is, in the world of things that need to get done and that includes gardening, it can be pretty hard to believe that something is going to come from nothing. In the same way that new seedlings appear from a space where it looks like there’s nothing, right up until the very last minute, so brand-new thought comes from a place where we can look and initially see nothing. Sometimes for quite a while.



So, once I’ve decided what I want to grow and planted the seed I can then often be seen avidly, sometimes obsessively I confess, checking the space every day. Sometimes three times to see if anything’s appeared yet, but no, there is still nothing there. How boring, let’s go and look at what I’ve already got. Maybe I should buy new seeds, perhaps there’s something wrong with these ones. Nothing seems to have changed.



Often at the end of a coaching session, a client will ask what they should do next. Perhaps they’ve had a glimpse of insight and want to get busy turning that into something as fast as possible, but the truth is that often the most valuable thing to do initially, once we have done the planting and watering is to just let nature do it’s work for a while.

 

I know I know, I keep wanting to go back and check if anything’s there yet, but nine times out of 10 if I have some trust in nature and how it knows what to do I am rewarded. And so, it is with me. If I can create the right conditions and trust in the nature of the design, I know the seed of new thought will grow. So, I just forget it and go about my business for a bit… I know, I know…


And then one day, there it is! The seedling. The insight in the shower, the song title that came to me when I forgot about it for a bit. The Duh! ‘slap forehead’ moment, the moment I wonder why on earth I didn’t see that before. Almost as if it had waited for me to stop looking. As if it was too shy to appear under such scrutiny.



In the garden, I turn my gaze towards the already established rose and out of the corner of my eye, I see it. The tiny green peep of life pushing its way into the space where nothing was. I

swear I looked there a second ago and there was nothing. And then...



At this moment I realise that nothing I could have done would have got me to this moment any faster. I just showed up, prepared the ground, sowed the seed tended the ground and let nature do its work. 


And then of course now I wonder, does the seedling need help? Should I tug at it, brush off the dirt, help it to hurry into the world, but we “gardeners” know that you mustn’t touch a seedling. So I wait and I watch and I keep my quiet side-attention on that space, the space of nothing from where something new and amazing came and wait for it to reveal itself fully in Its own good time. Sometimes unless I tagged it, I can’t actually remember what I’d

planted, but that’s probably another blog ;)



In these days of increasing pressure for ever greater achievement, to always live our best life always make the “right” decision and never waste a moment doing or thinking 'nothing much', all in the name of fulfilling our personalised and others' image of what life is supposed to look like, it can get pretty busy up there in the head department.

 

The truth is that when our heads are constantly full of all that stuff, the stuff we already know, it might feel safe and familiar but there is little room for anything fresh and new to emerge. Our new ‘thought seedling’ can only be planted and have a chance to grow in clear ground.



So next time you're stuck, you’ve searched around in what you already have and nothing's coming that inspires you, try taking a moment to get in touch with your deeper place of knowing. Take a mental break, stare into the middle distance, clear your head a little, check in with your deeper feeling, whatever you find will work for you with some practice. Then trust the process, go about your business and wait for the magic to happen.




Maxine Kemp is a transformative life coach based in East Suffolk UK who is dedicated to simplifying and demystifying the journey to greater peace well-being and empowerment.

"It’s not supposed to be that difficult."

To find out more about how your life can turn around in an instant.

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