02 Jun The Hard Work of Change
In a children’s story I often read to the girls, Toad decides he would like a garden full of beautiful flowers. He plants seeds and paces impatiently, waiting for them to grow. With mounting frustration, he begins shouting, “Now seeds, start growing!” His friend Frog comes running, wondering what all the ruckus is about. Frog tells him the seeds may be afraid to grow because he is shouting too much.
Attempting a gentler approach, Toad reads stories and poems to his seeds. Still, they do not grow. Finally, tuckered out from all the work of trying to make the seeds grow, Toad falls asleep. When he awakes (after the sun has shone and the rain has fallen), tiny green sprouts have emerged. As Frog and Toad admire the tiny plants together, Toad tells Frog, “It was very hard work.”
Every time I read this story, I think of it as a metaphor highlighting some of the challenges of helping people change. The seeds of change are often within. Yet, as helpers, we often become impatient as we wait for them to grow. Sometimes we begin to shout, offering the reasons someone should hurry up and change already. Other times, thinking the person must need more knowledge about what will happen if they don’t change, we rattle off facts and figures in an attempt to educate and enlighten. We become so busy trying to make change happen that we forget all change is fundamentally self-change. We don’t have to make change happen. In fact, we can’t.
What usually helps someone move forward is being there, sitting quietly nearby to let the person know they aren’t alone. It’s recognizing that what’s needed is already there and will unfold under the right conditions.
Holding back may be the hardest part of all.