How you feel is not an indicator of progress
This week's remembrances
Wild Being,
You will want to judge your progress by how you feel. However, this gauge will only separate you further from true growth.
There’s a milestone you’re trying to reach. Can you see it?
Just below the horizon where the light pours over the fields in swaths of gold. Where the rain has thinned enough for you to see the disappearing feet of a rainbow; the rest of its body wending back through the thick cloud. There’s a clearing where Sky meets sweet grass, where the rest is deep and the ache runs shallow. This is the place you want to be. Where you feel better, where you feel whole and life has finally become what so many have promised.
And this glorious place you see ahead of you makes every whip of sadness a disappointment. Every hopelessness becomes a sign that your destination is further away. Every word of anger uttered through clenched teeth becomes a bitter frustration, every tear a regression, every loss a loss of momentum, every trigger a validation that you will never find peace.
This way of judging your progress is disparaging. Using emotion to validate how well you are doing in life negates how growth actually occurs, despite how you feel.