Spring takes its own time. So do you. And that’s fantastic.

You can’t crack a bud and pry it open. If you do that, you lose all the beauty of its becoming. Things take their own time. Let them. Spring is coming. Spring always comes. Over and over and over again.

Patience.

The poet Rumi put things this way:

Patience is not sitting and waiting, it is foreseeing. It is looking at the thorn and seeing the rose, looking at the night and seeing the day. Lovers are patient and know that the moon needs time to become full.

Amen.

I’ve always loved this quote because it hints that “waiting” is not wholly passive. There is a fertile and expansive middle ground between complete inaction and obsessive striving. That middle ground where you are patient about desired outcomes and fully immersed in living is key: non-attachment + mindfulness.

How does this work? Imagine yourself simply enjoying a beautiful spring day without screaming at the buds and the flowers, “BEAR FRUIT ALREADY!” You don’t do this because that would just be silly; spring is already wonderful just as it is, its process in perfect harmony with the schedule of sunshine, warmth, and rain it receives in any particular year. You recognize this.

You wouldn’t scream at the buds and flowers to “BEAR FRUIT ALREADY!” even on a day that wasn’t so beautiful, would you? That would be silly too.

(Moreover, we all adore the flowers whether they bear fruit or not. So again, no need to chastise them.)

How do you treat your own “springs,” though? Are you equally kind to yourself? Just as importantly, have you given yourself permission yet to admire the way your process is unfolding, while it’s unfolding — even before you’ve begun to see results?

We live in an instant-gratification world, within which people are becoming increasingly convinced that instant results are completely within their control, if only they can figure out how to effectively micro-manage any given situation (financially, socially, esoterically, “energetically,” or otherwise). A lot of people are more than happy to indulge that illusion too, whether they subscribe to it or not. That’s why so many teacher-types design and sell programs to “help” you “accelerate” your own process. There is huge demand for this.

But why? Do we even stop to ask ourselves, why the obsession with speed?

What if spring lasted only all of five minutes — because some self-help guru came along and sold it some “self-improvement” package, taught it how to “accelerate” its development, “master the secrets” of “instant manifestation,” as if its process — unhurried — weren’t already breathtakingly perfect?

What a loss that would be.

We might feel more secure imagining that there’s some “secret” to making life happen on the schedule we prefer. Unfortunately, the flip side to this control-illusion is the sanctimonious blame and judgment that weigh us down when we (or others) think we aren’t moving “fast enough” toward goals we are already working on. Or toward goals that we can literally (even if just temporarily) do nothing further about. So we keep searching for ways to try, do, be “more,” while forgetting the value in simply BEING.

When I reflect on my own past, I see that the periods when I was wringing my hands over why life didn’t look like I wanted it to — why I wasn’t finding more income stability, achieving inner peace, unlocking solutions to my health frustrations, snagging a decent apartment, building a future with a life partner — were actually filled with incredible, life-affirming adventures, like surprise encounters, detours, and opportunities that far out-awesome’d anything I could have planned. In fact, often these amazing experiences were only possible because I was not yet where I wanted to be, because I did not yet have what I wanted to have.

I had to turn off my own self-directed negativity, however, and quit the self-blame over my own “slow” process before I could appreciate the unplanned wonders that sprang up while my dreams themselves were M.I.A.

Or, in the spirit of our analogy, it was like I’d wanted to rush right to autumn, the time of harvest, and was forgetting in my anxious haste that SO much magic comes long before that season arrives.

I’ve seen too many mind-blowing “coincidences” not to believe in divine timing. You may see things differently. That’s cool. But for a moment, just try to entertain the possibility that perhaps some things are on hold in your world not because you’re doing something “wrong.” (Self-blame of this variety can be a sneaky, psycho-spiritual ego trap: pointing the finger at yourself because you’ve convinced yourself that all results ought to be under your control at all moments.) Nor are the things that haven’t yet materialized for you “not meant to be.”

Quite simply, sometimes life takes a while to arrange everything.

I know this liberating truth can be easy to lose sight of in the self-“help” world. A lot of prevalent messages currently boil down something like this:

“If you’re still not seeing the results you want, it must be because you don’t believe enough, or haven’t ‘let go’ enough, or haven’t been reciting healing and abundance mantras in sufficient number, or with sufficient diligence/emotion/trust. OR maybe you don’t even truly want what you say you want, because life naturally and instantly gives you what you hope for if you’re whole and worthy and confident and sure of your dreams. If you hope and wish hard enough. If you visualize clearly enough.”

And on and on. And so they say. Else, some accuse, you are “blocking” yourself and need to do more spiritual “work.” (So… BUY THE NEXT LEVEL OF EBOOK/PACKAGE/COURSE/WORKSHOP/RETREAT! Right?)

Please, let me ask you this:

Is spring a blockage? Is the bud a sign of failure? Is the flower — still so far from the fruit it’s striving for — just not “wanting” it or “believing” it enough? Are any of these things inherently inadequate?

Chill.

Give yourself a break.

Your spring is unfolding with utter grace. This is the season when the ice melts and the streams are flowing again, yes. And we all know where each one of those inevitably ends up…

But even a river unobstructed takes some time to reach the sea.

Whichever season you’re in right now, enjoy it. You will be many springs. And many pregnant summers, and many bountiful, golden autumns, and many winters of glittering, still serenity. You already have been each of these, again and again. This is not a flaw. This is an art. The art that you are.

So put the self-doubt and self-criticism away. Just as you can’t criticize a bud into blossoming, you can’t cut yourself down and expect that that’s the way to thrive. You can’t go to war on yourself and expect that that’s the way to heal.

You can’t hate yourself into self-love.

What Spring Teaches Us about Self-Acceptance was originally published in The Ascent on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.