Embracing the Messy Middle: A Journey of Growth

The Beauty of Transformation

There’s an area at the front of our house that is brimming with white daisies and colourful foxgloves. They shine like purple and pink popsicles amidst the angelic blooms. Every time I drive in and out, just looking at those flowers swaying in the breeze makes me smile.

This stands in stark contrast to how I felt about this area six months ago. Back then, in the depths of winter, I asked my husband to strim the area and mow over what looked like a horticultural mess. It seemed like dead weeds had taken over what my son and I had lovingly planted two summers ago.

That weekend, in the heat, he and I grabbed our spades and trowels. We planted seeds, perennials, and hope for a scene that would delight not just us but the bees and bunnies emerging from a long winter. I wanted it to look neat immediately. Yet, despite my protestations, my husband urged me to wait.

If you know me, you’ll understand this isn’t just a piece about gardening. It’s about the part of our growth that often goes unseen or unacknowledged when we plant the seeds of change in our lives. It’s also the part we tend to avoid.

The Initial Excitement

When the initial energy of knowing what we want is still present, everything feels clear. We can see it even before we start doing anything. We can map the steps we need to take. We act, implementing those steps one by one. But when we wait for results to emerge, that energy starts to wane.

When that waiting stretches longer than expected, we begin to question everything. We start to re-evaluate what was once so clear. That’s when fear, doubt, and insecurities kick in. Like clockwork.

What once felt like growth can start to feel like failure. What felt intentional may begin to feel like judgment and self-criticism. This is what I like to call the ‘messy middle’—the space we often prefer to skip over, not talk about, and not recognise for what it truly is.

Understanding the Messy Middle

It’s the space we want to fill immediately to avoid the discomfort of uncertainty. We grasp at straws, making decisions out of fear and scarcity. We drown out that initial clarity based on trusting ourselves. This space isn’t proof that nothing is happening or that we’ve failed. It’s simply the part where growth and change aren’t visible. Yet.

The most unhelpful part of this journey is when we start to interfere with what we planted in the first place, going against what we knew to be right for us.

In gardens, at work, in relationships—any area requiring time—we tend to trust beginnings because they are full of momentum. We trust goals reached because they offer clarity. But we struggle to trust the middle, where nothing is resolved, and nothing is yet proven. So we intervene. We prune too early. We look over our work and start to over-analyse, finding mistakes where there aren’t any. We change direction too quickly.

We assume that space or silence means failure or that something is wrong—that we’re off track. Often, what is actually growing gets cut down before it has the chance to show itself.

Reflecting on My Journey

What my front yard teaches me is not just how wrong I was about the flowers during that time of the 'messy middle'. Looking back, I see how uncomfortable I was with not knowing. I quickly decided I knew the outcome and how certain I was about it. I wanted to fill that space because I couldn’t tolerate the discomfort of waiting without visible results.

I craved certainty. I wanted evidence. I sought reassurance that something was happening. In Bending Reality, Victoria Song describes this as contraction: the way our nervous system narrows our focus when faced with uncertainty. It pushes us toward certainty, even when it isn’t available—sometimes, even when that certainty may not be accurate.

Standing in front of those flowers now, I can see how quickly I mistook what I could see for the whole story. For months, all I saw was a patch of dead weeds. Today, that patch of land, filled with daisies and foxgloves, is the first thing I look at when I leave and return home.

It makes me so happy I didn’t act on what I thought I knew. I accepted my husband’s suggestion to wait. He was right—but I'm not going to tell him that.

The Power of Patience

Patience is a virtue, they say. It's a virtue I don't really practice. Patience is easy to overlook when we’re in the thick of uncertainty. We often forget that growth takes time. Just like those flowers, our personal and professional journeys require nurturing and care.

When we plant seeds—whether they’re in our gardens or our lives—we must allow them to take root. We need to trust the process. It’s not always easy. In fact, it can be downright uncomfortable. But that discomfort often signals growth.

So, the next time you find yourself in that messy middle, remember: it’s okay to wait. It’s okay to not have all the answers right now. Embrace the uncertainty. Trust that something beautiful is on the way.

In this journey, I’ve learned that the messy middle is not a sign of failure. It’s a necessary part of growth. It’s where we learn resilience, patience, and the power of trust.

After all, that’s where the magic happens.

Monita xo