As we’ve reflected this week on what has kept us from tending Growing Humans more consistently, one thread stands out: the assumption that we needed to offer something big, significant, polished, produced. Beneath that lives a part of us that whispers: what we put into the world must be WordPerfect, or it isn’t worth offering.
But this week we’ve been inquiring into those assumptions. What if the most human thing we can do is to offer smaller, truer increments? What if the livable, imperfect gestures are the ones that create the most spaciousness for growth?
[My real garden this morning—messy, uneven, alive. Some things thriving, some things fading, all of it growing in its own rhythm. A reminder that tending doesn’t mean perfection; it means staying with what is.]
Those questions became very concrete as we began planning our first, live Growing Humans webinar, happening in October. At first, we imagined 90 minutes (because that’s how long webinars are in the spaces we move in). But when we looked closer, that choice didn’t align with our real lives. One of us would have had to reshuffle kids’ schedules, add stress, narrow margins. And both of us felt that 90 minutes can be a stretch for anyone trying to fit one more thing into a crowded week.
So we decided: 60 minutes.
On the surface, this might seem like a technical adjustment. But underneath, it’s about how we want to grow together. We don’t want to model endurance, or make our offerings one more burden, for you or for us. We want to model livable increments. Because sometimes, honoring the constraint of chronos—the clock, the schedule—is the very thing that lets kairos—the timeless, the sacred—breathe.
We wonder with you:
Where are you pressing yourself into heroic sprints that no longer serve?
What happens if you size things for ease, and let life expand within that frame?
This is not an answer—it’s a seedling. 🌱
With care,
Val + Alis
P.S. We’ll share the date and registration details for the October webinar soon. For now, we’re glad to say: it will be one hour, human-sized.
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Join our in-depth, self-led developmental course for adults who raise and educate children - Growing Humans: How Raising Children Raises Us. Head over to the program page to learn more.
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