Hey, Cravings Tribe! So, we are starting Day 4 of our adventure, and I’m guessing that if some of you are anything like me (and I’m secretly hoping you are), you’re feeling like this isn’t going as well as expected. You may be getting down on yourself for not doing as much as you had hoped. You may be getting down on the tribe for not providing the transformation you had expected. You may be getting down in general, because you have to take down all those Christmas decorations (ugh) or you have a big work project coming up that’s stressing you out (double ugh) or you have to try to bi-locate to drive two of your children to three\u00a0different places in opposite directions but\u00a0during overlapping times tonight (true-story ugh). And you may be ready to scream, “SERENITY NOW!!!”<\/p>\n
It’s all okay. It’s all normal. No one said this was going to be easy or fast. Expect it to be a dance of two steps forward and one step back. In the end, you’ll still be making “progress,” not that we should be measuring progress, because that’s not what it’s about. Every day we have to be willing to be a beginner all over again. To start over, if necessary, and without\u00a0judgment. (That’s the hard part, isn’t it? We are good at self-judgment.)<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what I said about\u00a0my own struggles with this beginner mentality in \u201cNotes from the Journey\u201d in my book\u00a0Everyday Divine<\/em>:<\/p>\n I\u2019m not good at being a beginner. I want to be an expert from Day 1. No matter what I\u2019m doing. Even when I\u2019m doing something I\u2019ve never done before. Not sure where that mentality comes from, but it\u2019s a stumbling block. To expect perfection in everything is a surefire path to \u201cfailure,\u201d or to not trying at all.<\/p>\n I need the willingness to be a beginner in prayer, to sit there and be open to whatever might unfold, to come back day after day even when it feels like I\u2019m not progressing and just practice my \u201ccraft,\u201d the craft of praying.<\/p>\n This week in the early morning hours before anyone else is awake, I\u2019ve been saying Morning Prayer out on the deck or in my sun porch. And slowly, slowly I have found a rhythm there that feels right, one I hope I can keep up for good. As soon as that thought enters my mind, I realize I\u2019m heading right back to the quest for perfection instead of living in this moment, praying in this moment, one day at a time. \u00a0(Everyday Divine, page 12)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n When you feel yourself slipping into that perfectionist mentality or that mindset that tells you that you should be making progress faster, just stop, breathe, and begin again from wherever you are at that point. It’s all good.<\/p>\n I was listening to something yesterday and the speaker said that if you know you’re someone who has issues letting things go or being still, that’s a good thing, because it means you are aware and you are working toward awakening. So let that be a hopeful reminder to you today. You are here, which means you’ve already taken the biggest and most difficult step: recognizing that you want to awaken something within and shift the balance of your life. Begin again. Today. Every day. Always.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hey, Cravings Tribe! So, we are starting Day 4 of our adventure, and I’m guessing that if some of you are anything like me (and I’m secretly hoping you are), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[565,566,570,574,575,20,273,22,429,71],"class_list":["post-6289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cravings","tag-cravingstribe","tag-soulsurvivor","tag-soulsurvivors","tag-balance","tag-beginner","tag-cravings","tag-diet","tag-food_2","tag-self-acceptance","tag-true-self"],"yoast_head":"\n