by Stefany J. Jones on Thursday, July 27, 2020, at 1:00 pm

There is something to be said about the PROCESS of growth. I remember as a young girl during my teenage years that there was a period when I would sleep every chance I got. I remember during my own son’s puberty, he did the same, and my daughters the same. It’s as if no matter how hard you tried, you just could seem to stay awake. My father would say, “that’s because you’re growing.” And sure enough, the product of sleeping an entire summer away would yield me an additional two inches on my height.

As I have been going through so very many life lessons these past few years, and even quite a few these past couple of months, I realize the importance and necessity of REST upon a body so that growth can take place. I have found myself extremely tired and exhausted after work and study only to discover that I am sleeping more than I ever have. No matter how hard I try to stay awake so that I can do ‘more,’ my body shuts down independently of my desires, and I am forced into a sleep state.

As always, you know me. I am still trying to understand the complexity of simple things as I make unaffected the most complex areas of my existence. I began researching the process of gestation and learned so very much about the metamorphosis brought about as a result.

We were taking the comparability of the life cycle of the butterfly as an example. There are four stages, the egg, the larva (caterpillar), the pupa (chrysalis), and the adult butterfly. We have a similar emergence throughout our life cycle.

The egg (gestation period in the womb), the childhood stage (where we are taking everything in), our young adult lives (where our growth is taking place), and then our adulthood.

In closely examining this universal life process, I decided to delve deeper into the spiritual significance and application of the same process. In doing so, I re-examined my entire mental process and walk and can honestly see those areas where my growth has had significant strides. I now understand the importance of my “sleep state,” and that not unlike the caterpillar who is in the pupa stage, “…From the outside of the pupa, it looks as if the caterpillar may just be resting, but the inside is where all of the action is.  Inside the pupa, the caterpillar is rapidly changing.” That is what has been happening to me.

While from the outside it looks and appears as if I’ve been resting, away, on hiatus, absent, missing in action (smile)… from the inside ALL OF THE ACTION has been taking place and I’ve been rapidly changing. I know now that all of these years, I’ve been going through my STAGES of the life and birthing cycle.

I’ve been in my gestational period of being fed, taking in, growing, and prepared. There are times when I’ve been nurtured and those moments when I’ve longed for nurturing that never seemed to present itself (at least not in the physical anyway).

Nevertheless, with all of that, I still have found myself going through the PROCESS and growing by leaps and bounds at the expense of sometimes being utterly unaware of my surroundings and strides as it relates to my walk. As I begin to seek more, thirst more, get fed more, learn more, I find that the savor of gestation is an acquired taste. As a woman who has been utterly impatient for most of her life, I am learning the POWER OF THE SLEEP STATE, the value of the slow, and the emergence from that period as one who is growing and glowing, and sowing.

Granted, I’ve been close to this space and place before. With even my most intimate and near misses of that FINISH LINE, I have received and can most appreciate the value in those times even. Learning through personal experiences is immeasurable, sharing them as teachings for others to learn is my willingness and obligation.

I am finding joy in my transparency. I am finding peace with my choices. I am finding the endless supply of love that enters into a person’s life with the surrender to a process that was designed to grow them by leaps and bounds in the first place.

It’s a beautiful place to be in, and I look forward to enjoying the now of this space until it’s time to move into the next.

 

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