The fact that I teach about the cycles of life—how everything is born, grows, dies, and is reborn— doesn’t mean I always remember it in my own daily life.
Human nature is funny that way.
We forget so we can remember.
We stumble, not because we’re bad at this, but because remembering is part of the curriculum of being human.
Case in point:
I know that I can’t harvest from a seed I just planted.
I know that fruit takes time to grow.
And still, when I plant the seed, part of me wants the fruit three hours later.
Lately, this lesson has been showing up in a very literal way.
I’ve had two non-negotiable practices in my life for years:
- Daily meditation.
- Regular physical movement, like the gym, dance, anything that keeps my body strong and happy.
For a decade, I meditated every single morning without fail. Even on the hard days. Especially on the hard days.
And sure, sometimes I wondered why I still felt anxious or tired or overwhelmed.
But then I’d remember: it would probably be worse without the practice.
Because most days, I actually feel great. Centered. Alive. Clear.
Recently, my schedule shifted and my gym routine fell from three times a week to one.
It took exactly one month for my back to rebel.
Suddenly, I was in pain, unable to get out of bed, starting physical therapy, rearranging my life again.
And I realized something that I’ve said to my students a thousand times but apparently needed to relearn myself:
The work works.
There’s no way to sow seeds and not get some kind of plant.
There’s no way to move your body and not get stronger.
There’s no way to study and not learn.
There’s no way to meditate and not shift your mind.
But, there is a way to forget that it’s working when the results aren’t instant.
And there’s a way to make it worse: stop doing it.
If you think it’s not working, try not doing it for a while.
That’ll show you the truth faster than any oracle deck or therapist ever could.
Here’s what happens when you stop doing it:
You skip a few meditations, and suddenly your mind feels like a noisy café with bad music.
You miss your morning walk, and by noon your thoughts are brittle and mean.
You skip the gym for a couple of weeks, and your spine starts filing formal complaints.
You stop journaling, and the things that used to make sense start to blur again.
You stop calling the friend who reminds you who you are, and isolation creeps in like fog.
You stop tending your altar, and the house feels flat, uninspired, like no one’s home.
It’s not punishment. It’s physics.
The energy you don’t move, stagnates.
The seed you stop watering, dies.
The practice you abandon, stops protecting you.
This is my own little TED Talk to myself (and maybe to you too):
To keep doing the things that make life work.
To stay loyal to the practices that keep me healthy, peaceful, clear, even when my calendar or my mind says I can’t afford the time.
Because the truth is:
I can’t afford not to.
And neither can you.
So if you’re reading this, let this be your reminder: to return to what nourishes you.
To recommit to what keeps you whole.
To stay with the seed, even before it sprouts.
You deserve that.
Your body deserves that.
Your life depends on that kind of devotion.
Courage, truth, and infinite love,
.
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I don’t believe in magic, but I know that it works!
Magic is not a belief system, it’s a practice that works. Don’t believe me? Come try it out. If it doesn’t work, you lose nothing. But if it does… your dream life is about to begin!
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“El poder está en la acción.”
— Maritza Schafer