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January 7 - January 22, 2025
Growth looks like two steps forward and five steps back sometimes. Healing isn’t linear or iterative. Healing is a process, not an event, and in the process of healing and learning, repetition is important. Different iterations of the same lesson theme show up repeatedly, and each time they do, you understand the lesson a little more completely. That’s how learning is supposed to work.
Perfectionists do not enjoy focusing on healing because healing is not a prescriptive endeavor. We much prefer that one big thing be very wrong with us (a cluster of many medium- or small-sized impairments is also fine) so that we can systematically annihilate all of our inadequacies
at once and move forward with a perfect reset.
If you could fully accept the immutability of your worth, that would be all the healing you’d ever need. This is very upsetting news for perfectionists. Perfectionists love a project.
What does work is to engage the invisible tedium of moving away from who you’re not and moving towards who you are. It’s not a glamorous process, you won’t get any credit for it, there are no instructions, and there’s no finish line because it never ends. Have fun.
Do I like this? Is this what I want? Is this who I am? Is this working for
me? Am I happier yet? Should I be crying right now? What is this doing to my relationships? How is this affecting my work? Is this worth my discomfort? Are there snacks here? What is happening?
When it comes to finding the life that’s right for us, everyone has two left feet until they don’t.
When you block your emptiness from existing, you block your potential from developing.
You have to have done a lot of grief work to be in a liminal space. Grief is always the admission charge for major transition. You have to let go of the parts of you that you’ve outgrown, hence, the emptiness.
Liminal spaces are necessary for personal growth. When you’re in a liminal space, you have to allow yourself to exist in between dichotomies without putting pressure on yourself to pick a side.
To access power in a liminal space, you need to remember that you’re not passively feeling bad, empty, or bored for no reason. You are actively choosing to stand firm on the threshold of a boundless, more authentic you.
Before I started practicing, I believed that everything happens for a reason. I don’t believe that anymore. Sometimes, not only is there not a perfect answer for “why,” there’s no answer at all.
Power amidst the desire for closure is about recognizing that you don’t need something to close; you need something to open. You need opensure.
People who heal are not the anointed ones who’ve figured out how to tie up all the loose ends; they’re the ones who’ve pulled the string on something new.
Your curiosity knows what you need to open yourself up to. Curiosity is the unsung hero of mental health. Curiosity is strong; it can pull you out of anything.
To allow exploration without destination.
