Frog Taught Me to Do Things My Way

Under Pressure

I have a nasty habit of being in a hurry and over-planning my life. Once I get an idea for a project, I want it done like yesterday and I usually write out a timeline with completion goals that I want myself to stick to and achieve. Not that there’s anything wrong with goals and timelines, but somehow they usually make me more stressed rather than less.

A few months ago, I started working on a new book: What the Owl Knows – Spiritual Guidance from Animals for More Peace, Power and Purpose in Your Life. I outlined the book, created a timeline and immediately felt rushed and stressed out. It wasn’t a reasonable timeline and it was more about finishing it in a short amount of time than it was about doing a great job. I thought I could do both but when I didn’t finish a chapter according to my goals, I felt bad and felt even more pressure to hurry up.

And then I remembered the Frog.

The Wisdom of a Frog

We talked with an amazing Frog in the Animal Wisdom Circle in October of last year. Among other things, I asked him my Three Questions.

What is your Spiritual Gift?

Equanimity. There is action and non-action. Unless there is a reason to take action, your default setting should be non-action. In this way, you achieve Right Action.

What is your Spiritual Lesson?

Our challenge is knowing the timing between action and non-action.  You need to assess the situation, act without hesitation and have self-awareness, self-control and patience. You have to practice to watch and wait.

Do you have a Message for People?

Allow things to unfold and trust that you will know the right time to act. Trust your intuition to guide you in taking action.

My Frog Dream

I’d kept the Frog’s wisdom in my mind but I surely wasn’t living it fully, the way I was stressing myself out about getting my book out in two months! And then when I was camping last weekend, I had a dream right before I woke up.

In my dream, I had been swimming somewhere — maybe the ocean, maybe a pool — I’ not sure where. Coming out of the water I felt like I had a medallion on my chest just below my clavicular notch. When I looked down, I saw that it was a big bumpy lump, not a medallion, and then the big bump separated into two frogs. Each frog jumped to one shoulder and sat there, facing forward, tangled in my hair.

A sense of joy and happiness filled me and I started laughing. I thought it was so cool that these two frogs chose me and were standing sentry on my shoulders.

As I awoke from the dream, I considered its meaning.

Shoulder Angel and Shoulder Devil

I remembered driving to school one day several years ago and my son Zane (who was probably 6 or 7 at the time) asked me if everyone had a Shoulder Angel and a Shoulder Devil.  I smiled and explained to him that sure, in a way we all did. The Shoulder Devil represents the voices of darkness, telling us to do things we know are wrong for us. The Shoulder Angel on the other hand is the voice of our higher self and that is where we get our best inner guidance. Sometimes these voices contradict each other and we feel conflict inside of us, I explained.

Lying in my sleeping bag that morning, I realized that I have no more inner conflict between the Angel and the Devil because I had two frogs helping me out. (My Team keeps getting bigger!)

Right timing would be my new MO. No conflict. No worry. Just acting when it’s time to act.

I felt peace in my whole body and I was so relaxed!

Frog Take Home Lesson

So, here are my lessons from Frog and my Frog Dream: Do things my way at my own pace. Stop making arbitrary deadlines. Just do the work organically and allow the book to show me how it wants to take shape.

I’m sure there are more lessons, but these are the ones that are clear to me right now. (Do you see another lesson or message? Please share it in the comments!)

Since that dream last weekend, I have felt so peaceful about my book and I put away my timeline and goals. I realized that the book is truly writing itself through me: each chapter is about the impact one animal has made on my life and the spiritual psychology tools that anyone can use to apply the lessons to their lives. I really have to LIVE this book before I can write it. How can I rush LIFE itself? Plus, rushing almost always leads to sloppiness and I really want this book to be the best that it can. I want it to help as many people as possible. I don’t want to rush and have it turn out that it didn’t reach its full potential.

What Can You Do?

After I got up and had some hot chocolate, I sat back in my camp chair with my feet up on the fire pit and just soaked it all in. My son was at the beach with our friends, my daughter had gone back to bed for a nap in the tent, and I had the luxury of time alone to ponder and think and ruminate and question.

What had made me feel so rushed to finish this book so fast? What was the core belief that was operating in my subconscious mind that was pushing me to hurry?

A memory from third grade rose to the surface: we were painting cherry blossom trees and I wanted the pink color of the leaves to be just right. I took so long mixing the paints that the class was over and it was time for recess by the time I had gotten my colors just right. My teacher was very frustrated with me and lectured me about finishing my work on time and working more quickly and staying with the program. My ‘punishment’ was to stay in for recess and finish my painting. Hurray! That’s exactly what I wanted to do!

But now, forty years later, I realized that even though I was fine with taking my time to create my art, I had internalized my teacher’s hurry and desire for everyone to move quickly and get things done “on time.” For her, it was better to work quickly rather than to take “extra” time to create your artistic vision. As I realized this, I quickly forgave myself for buying into the misunderstanding that it’s better to be fast than to take your time. I created the new belief that I follow my inner guidance and work at my own pace, the pace that is right for me.

I spent another half hour uncovering limiting beliefs like that one, dissolving it through forgiveness, and creating new beliefs to take their place. i won’t go into all the details here, but I will share my process with you: first I identify the self-talk (such as “you work too slowly and need to produce faster”), then I identify the source (that was my teacher’s belief, not mine!), next I forgive myself for buying into the belief, and finally I create a new, updated, more accurate belief to take its place (“It’s best for me to work at my own pace and honor my creativity and the natural flow of creativity in my life”).

Now It’s Your Turn

What does the Frog’s wisdom mean for you? Are you rushing a project or an interaction? What is the subconscious belief that is pushing you to hurry? Please share your insights in the comments – the more we all share, the more we all learn and grow and evolve!