Hey,
It's Nikki.
Welcome back to Off the Mat.
I want to tell you a story today,
One I come back to again and again,
Especially when I'm feeling like nothing's working.
And it's about bamboo.
So there's a particular type of bamboo,
It's called Chinese bamboo,
And it grows differently than almost any other plant.
Here's what happens.
You plant the seed,
You water it,
You wait,
And nothing happens.
You keep watering,
You fertilize the soil,
You make sure it gets the sunlight,
You do everything right,
And still guess what?
Nothing.
No sprout,
No shoot,
No sign of life,
Just dirt.
And a whole entire year will go by.
Nothing.
You keep watering.
Second year,
Guess what?
Nothing.
Third year,
Nothing.
Fourth year,
You're standing there starting to wonder if you've been scammed,
If the seed was a dud,
If you're wasting your time,
If you should have just given up by now and planted something else,
Something that actually grows.
But you keep watering.
Guess what?
Fifth year,
Oh yeah,
Nothing.
Still nothing.
Fifth year,
Nothing.
Nothing.
And then,
After the fifth year,
In the span of about six weeks,
The bamboo shoots up 90 feet tall.
90 feet in six weeks.
And five years of absolutely nothing.
Now here's a question.
Did the bamboo grow 90 feet in six weeks?
Or did it grow 90 feet in five years?
You know the answer.
For five years,
The bamboo was growing.
You just couldn't see it because it was underground building a root system strong enough to support what it was about to become.
Spreading out,
Digging deep.
Doing the invisible work that would make the visible work possible.
If you had dug it up after three years to check on it,
To see if it was working,
You would have killed it.
If you'd stopped watering at year four because you lost faith,
Dead.
The bamboo needed you to trust the process,
To keep showing up,
To keep watering,
Even when there was no evidence that it actually even mattered.
I think about this all the time because we live in a world that wants instant results,
Visible progress,
Metrics,
Before and after photos,
Proof that it's working.
And when we don't see the proof,
We assume nothing's happening.
We assume we're failing.
We assume the seed was bad.
The effort was wasted.
We should try something else.
But what if you're in year three?
What if you're in year four?
What if you're in year five?
What if the roots are spreading right now underground where you can't see them?
What if the work is working,
You just can't see it yet?
This is so true for so many things.
Think about it.
Healing really doesn't happen on a timeline that you can track.
You go to therapy,
You do the work,
You think nothing's changing,
And then one day you realize you responded differently to something that used to really upset you or trigger you.
Your roots were growing.
Parenting is like this.
You say the same things over and over,
And you wonder if any of it is landing.
And then your kid says or does something that shows it did land.
She is kind.
She says something wise.
And you realize,
Oh,
They were listening.
The roots were growing.
Let's apply it to fitness,
Creativity,
Learning,
Relationships.
You water,
You water,
You water.
And maybe for a long time it just looks like dirt.
And then suddenly the thing you're working on just shoots up and everyone sees the bamboo.
But they don't see the five years underground.
So here's what I want you to hear today.
You're not behind.
You're not failing.
You're not wasting your time.
You are building roots.
The work you're doing,
The yoga,
The therapy,
The meditation,
The journaling,
The trying,
The trying,
The trying,
It's going somewhere.
You just can't see it yet maybe.
Your job isn't to see it right now.
Your job is to keep watering.
I know it's hard,
And I know it's frustrating.
I know the inner critic,
The one we tapped for yesterday,
Is saying,
You should just maybe give up and try something new.
You should be further along by now.
What's wrong with you?
But nothing is wrong with you.
You are bamboo.
And bamboo doesn't sprout until it's ready,
Until the roots are deep enough to support,
Until the foundation can hold what's coming.
And you cannot rush it.
You can't dig it up to check on it either.
You can't compare your underground season to someone else's visible growth.
You just have to trust and keep watering.
So here's a reflection today.
Where are you in the bamboo season?
Where are you in that season?
Where have you been watering and seeing nothing?
Where have you been losing faith?
What if you're in year four?
What if the roots are almost ready?
What if you're closer than you think to something breaking through the surface?
So don't stop now.
The dirt doesn't mean nothing is happening.
The dirt means something is growing that you can't see.
So keep watering.
Trust the roots.
The bamboo doesn't know it's about to be 90 feet tall.
It just keeps growing towards what it's becoming,
And so do you.
I'm Nikki.
This is Off The Mat.
You're not behind.
You're building roots.
I'll see you tomorrow.
