Lesson from a Zucchini
There is a mantra from my yoga teacher training that has become a part of how I try to live my life. In shorthand it’s this: do the work, show up, offer what you have to offer, and release attachment to outcome. It’s been a comforting practice for me particularly since the end of 2020 when my work with kids dried up and I was launched on a 2.5 year journey (so far) to remake my life. I started with the Kids Super Journal Podcast, then launched my own business with the mindfulness activity books, the Kids Super Journal and the just released Teen Super Journal. I oscillate daily from hope and excitement to fear and doubt. And there is so much work. All the time. So much change. It’s wonderful and terrifying. And through it, I have relied on this mantra to relieve my stress and to restore my hope and enthusiasm. I am doing the work. Loving the work. And when doubt and demand for more results arise, I remind myself to RELEASE ATTACHMENT TO OUTCOME.
Well, not so much last week. In a state of burnout—or should I say the same state of burnout that has come and never really gone for the past year—I arrived home from my office and sat on the deck steps too weary to go in the house. I felt numb from a self-induced stressful day and managing unproductive thinking. The mellow late-September sun was warm and the sky was a baby blanket blue. I lay back on the hot deck and let the heat soak through my clothes, through my skin, and into my thoughts. I softened.
For some reason, I thought about my zucchini plant. It was an unusually rainy summer and the zucchini had not yielded its usual over-abundance of squash. Only 4 all season when last year there were so many I couldn’t give them away. I checked the plant all through August—no new growth—and I decided it was done producing. That was almost a month ago and I hadn’t given it another thought.
I got up to check the garden. I wanted to note how much work was ahead to prepare it for winter and send some gratitude to the plants for giving me so much from a few tiny seeds. And like magic, there wasn’t just a zucchini growing but the biggest zucchini I’d ever seen (see above photo—that’s my size 10 Chuck Taylors next to it). I was literally awed at this miraculous, giant squash growing out of nowhere. I laughed at myself and I laughed with delight as I plucked it from the vine, flicked two snails off of it (ugh), and took my treasure into the house along with this lesson:
When you are weary of trying, and there seems to be nothing happening, no apparent results from your effort, and maybe you even feel like it’s all come to an end, release attachment to outcome. Behind the scenes, the universe is working on your behalf and you just might be awed by the giant abundance that is about to show up. Releasing attachment to outcome is an act of trust in yourself and in the world around you. Pause. Stop forcing. Stop demanding results. Just do the thing, enjoy the thing, and allow the universe to do its thing. Trust in the unseen magic of your efforts by releasing attachment to outcome.
This is such an important lesson to teach kids, too; Set your course, do the work, enjoy the process, and release any attachment to how it turns out. It really is the journey that contains the reward. That reward is in the present moment of learning about yourself, making mistakes and finding new solutions, and reveling in the wonderment of just being a kid. Release attachment to outcome.
Zucchini bread anyone?