Tending the Soil

On Intention, Manifestation, and the Things We Cannot Force

I’ve spent much of my professional life thinking about outcomes. What could go wrong? What could be prevented? What conditions needed to be in place to improve the likelihood of success? In risk advisory, these were useful questions. Anticipating problems, questioning assumptions, and identifying what might interfere with an objective were part of doing my work well. But somewhere along the way, vigilance and responsibility became closely connected in my mind. If something mattered, I needed to stay on top of it. If I cared about an outcome, I needed to anticipate what might prevent it from happening. There was one more possibility to consider, one more detail to examine, one more contingency to prepare for. I hadn’t fully appreciated how easily that way of thinking could follow me into other areas of life.

This week, during a meditation retreat with davidji in California, something clicked. We were exploring intention and manifestation, subjects I’ve studied and practised before. I’ve long understood the importance of setting intentions, taking aligned action, and releasing attachment to outcomes. Yet as davidji began talking about seeds and soil, I found myself considering these familiar teachings from a different perspective.

What About the Soil?

We spend so much time thinking about what we want to grow. A fulfilling relationship, a successful career, a book finding its readers, a child growing into a confident adult, greater financial freedom, or simply a life that feels more aligned with who we are. These are the seeds we plant. We set goals, make plans, work hard, and hope that our efforts will produce the results we desire. Often we become so invested in those results that we measure our progress almost entirely by what we can see happening around us.

But davidji invited us to look beneath the surface, toward the soil itself. Even the most extraordinary seed will struggle to grow in barren ground, while fertile soil can support growth in ways we might never have anticipated. His invitation was to pay less attention to the particular seed we wanted to grow and more attention to the conditions in which we were planting it. The soil, as we explored it during the retreat, was our inner world: the quality of our presence, our relationship with ourselves, our capacity for peace, joy, connection, and compassion, the values that guide our choices, and the way we show up in ordinary moments.

When Responsibility Becomes Vigilance

For years, I had associated doing my part with anticipating and managing what could happen next. There was nothing inherently wrong with that. Preparation matters, particularly when other people are relying on us. But I could see how easily responsible preparation could turn into something else: the belief that remaining vigilant might somehow give me more control over the result. We can do everything within our power to prepare the conditions for something to flourish, but the outcome will still depend on circumstances, timing, other people, and factors beyond our control. More importantly, our preoccupation with the outcome can affect the conditions we’re trying to create.

Consider a difficult conversation. We enter it hoping to repair a relationship, reach an agreement, or finally be understood. We prepare what we want to say, consider the other person’s perspective, and choose our words carefully. But if we’re determined to secure a particular response, something can shift in the conversation itself. We stop actively listening. We become defensive when the discussion takes an unexpected direction. We begin managing the other person’s reaction rather than remaining present with them. The intention may have been connection, yet the way we’re pursuing it can create distance.

The same thing happens in professional life. A leader wants a team to succeed and becomes so focused on achieving the desired result that every deviation feels threatening. A writer wants a piece of work to be well received and continues revising long after the changes have stopped improving it. A parent wants the best for a child and finds it difficult to allow that child to make choices that might lead to disappointment. I recognize something of myself in each of these examples. We can genuinely care about something and still approach it from fear, pressure, or a need for control. We may even convince ourselves that our vigilance is evidence of how deeply we care, without noticing what we’re cultivating within ourselves in the process.

The Conditions We Cultivate Within

During the retreat, davidji guided us through an exercise he called the Wheel of Awareness. Rather than examining the usual categories of our lives, such as career, relationships, finances, and health, we turned our attention inward. We explored presence, self-love, peace, wholeness, devotion, and connection. These weren’t measures of external achievement. They were invitations to notice the quality of the inner environment from which we live. One question stayed with me: how much of my energy is settled, rather than spent protecting, controlling, or forcing?

It’s an uncomfortable question when you’ve become accustomed to being the person who anticipates problems, takes responsibility, and figures things out. Yet sitting there, I began to recognize that cultivating peace requires a different kind of attention from managing risk. I can prepare thoroughly for a conversation without trying to determine the other person’s response. I can work diligently toward a goal without making my sense of worth dependent on achieving it. I can care deeply about someone while accepting that their choices remain their own. The challenge is recognizing when attentive involvement has quietly become an attempt to control something beyond my reach.

I also began thinking about how much attention I have given to preparing for outcomes throughout my life, and how little attention I gave at times to the internal conditions from which I was pursuing them. There is a difference between approaching an opportunity with curiosity and approaching it with the fear of failure, between entering a conversation genuinely open to connection and entering it determined to be understood, between working toward something meaningful because it reflects our values and pursuing it because we need the achievement to tell us something about our worth. The goal may be identical, but the person showing up is different. That difference influences what we notice, how we respond, the decisions we make, and the relationships we build along the way.

This was the part of the teaching that stayed with me. I spent so many years learning to anticipate what could interfere with an outcome. Now I was considering something more foundational: the quality of the inner environment from which I approach life in the first place. It brought me back to a question davidji returned to throughout the retreat: Who is the person showing up today?

We often approach manifestation by asking what we want. We picture the relationship, the opportunity, the achievement, or the circumstances we hope to experience. We become precise about the future we’re trying to create. Yet there’s another question worth considering: who are we becoming as we move toward it? Are we showing up with curiosity or defensiveness, with openness or fear? Are we present with the people around us, or are we so occupied with the future that we barely notice the life we’re living now? Do our daily choices reflect the values we say matter to us? These questions bring manifestation out of wishful thinking and into the way we live.

A Different Kind of Attention

Cultivating the soil takes attention. It means noticing when our behaviour has drifted away from our intentions, examining the stories we tell ourselves and the expectations we carry, and recognizing when we’re creating pressure where greater openness might serve us better. It also means remembering that joy, connection, rest, and self-compassion deserve attention in their own right. They aren’t rewards we earn once everything works out. They are part of the life we’re cultivating now, whether or not the particular outcome we’re pursuing ever materializes.

There is still a place for goals, planning, discipline, and effort. I haven’t returned from this retreat believing that preparation is unnecessary or that outcomes don’t matter. I still care deeply about the work I do, the people I love, and the things I’m creating. What has changed is where I want to place more of my attention. I can prepare the ground, nourish what matters, and take meaningful action without being consumed by vigilance. I can recognize when something needs my involvement and when continued effort has become an attempt to force what isn’t mine to decide. I can do my part without assuming that everything depends on me. And I can tend the soil even when I don’t know what will grow.

Here in Montreal, late October is when gardeners plant their tulip bulbs. They prepare the ground, set the bulbs into the earth, and cover them before winter arrives. Soon the garden disappears beneath the snow. For months, nothing visible suggests anything is happening. Beneath the surface, spring’s conditions quietly unfold.

I’ve loved that image for years. But after this retreat, I’m paying more attention to the earth surrounding the bulbs. The bulbs matter, of course. Yet it is the soil that nourishes whatever takes root.

And there is a whole garden to tend.

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