Ever been in that place where you really wish you weren’t? Not necessarily a physical location but a place in life?

It’s like kids, always wanting to be old enough to do this or that instead of just being content on where they are now?

We so often are in that place where we wish we were in a different place or stage in life, perhaps a bit further ahead of where you are now.

For example, when I was studying osteopathy, I had always wished for that time that I could really feel what was happening under my hands.

You see osteopathy is a profession where you develop finite palpitation skills or feeling with the hands. This skill is required to feel the motility (not the mobility) of structures; it’s innate lemniscate (3D figure 8) movement that helps identify the state of health of a tissue.

In my years of studying osteopathy, I really did not feel with my hands the motility of the bodies structures. The fine palpatory skills required were not yet available for me. I would get glimpses of the power of this palpatory skill with instructors, but on my own, I was challenged.

I was reminded in a pathophysiology course in my 4th year of study that information comes in various ways.

I explained to the instructor that I couldn’t feel the kidney and its motility, so the instructor suggested I place my hands on the space where the kidney resided and simply asked me what it was doing. I answered the question without hesitation, yet I couldn’t “feel” a thing. After expressing this, he simply told me, my answer was correct, so however I received the information was not important, I simply needed to trust.

In my state of wishing I had a particular skill, I almost missed where I was, how I was receiving the information because I wanted to be at point b instead of point a where I resided. I was not appreciative of where I was.

This was a valuable lesson for me and allowed me to believe in myself, to trust. This was growth, right where I resided. It has also allowed me to gain additional skills I would never have imagined (think remote healing) because of that moment and understanding the wisdom within it.

I eventually learned to feel with my hands, but I needed to learn that information came in other ways and to trust it, to trust myself. If I had spent too much time trying to learn and not appreciate where I was, it might have taken me much longer to achieve the palpation skills I was seeking to experience or miss the gifts that came.

Today, that trust and belief in myself was worth its weight in gold.

If you are in a place where you wish you were further ahead than you are, what lesson could you be missing looking forward instead of in the present?