Spiraling Forward…

In my own journeyI have found myself doing the really hard work of self reflection, managing my thoughts and healing in a purposeful way. The ultimate goal is just to be a little bit better each day while striving to be the best version of myself I can be. It’s hard work y’all. It’s exhausting. And just when you feel like you’ve gotten a handle on it, life throws you for a loop. So many times I would look at the work ahead of me and let all the thoughts come up that made me feel incredibly overwhelmed. “This is impossible” I would think. “ I have such a long way to go”. You might imagine how helpful those thoughts were in my journey to move forward. Yeah, they weren’t helpful at all. But sometimes I would think something along the lines of “I’ll try” or “it might be possible”. That would be enough to take the tiniest baby step forward, one at a time. At some point I would look back and see the road traveled behind me. Huzzah! Maybe it wasn’t impossible after all! But the thing about progress is, it’s rarely a straight line. When you’re in it for the long haul, you can expect some bumps, snags and zig zags at some point along the way. Inevitably I would stumble and slide back into old patterning. When you’ve put a lot of effort into something and have had some wins, that first L can be DEVASTATING. A lot of my personal work has been being ok with the journey and all the pitfalls that come with it. It’s very easy to be overtaken by shame when encountering a pitfall and want to give up entirely. Those old thoughts come up like “what’s wrong with me, I should be further along by now, see it is impossible, all of my hard work means nothing”. It’s the same thing with creating and learning something new in art. I experience this a lot when I’m learning a new piece on the piano. It’s definitely not easy for me so each new song requires a lot of brain power. I push through even when it’s hard and before I know it I’ve learned a new song. YAY! But then I start another song and am all too tempted to pull up the script of negative self talk. The brain likes to be effiecient, so it’s gonna go with what it knows. “Let’s not do anything too hard or that has a risk of failure so we can stay comfortable and safe” - Love, Brain. This is the brains way of trying to protect us. Our work is to get ahead of that primitive brain and trust the journey. Even when it’s hard, even when it’s painful, even when we don’t want to practice. Trusting that all it takes is some forward movement every day.

I was introduced to the forward spiral concept that has helped me a lot. When you set out on that path of learning something new you have a starting point and a goal point. It might be far out but it’s straight ahead and you can see the finish line so you get going. You might even gain some forward momentum. At some point the setbacks hit, not doing it perfectly, regressing, bad luck - something that makes it feel like you’re falling backwards. I like to envision the forward spiral and path of progress as the swirl on top of Hostess cupcakes. Think of the set backs as that first loop. You’re moving along, doing your best, getting better every day and then OH MY GOD you’re falling backwards. This is jarring. But that’s ok! Instead of going to the “I’ve lost it all” negative mind space, try instead thinking about that cupcake swirl. Eventually you WILL level off again and can keep moving. Even if you get hit with another loop. Even if you go for a few spins on the same loop before getting out of it. It’s ok. When you get out of a loop you can look back and see that you have still covered a lot of ground, you’re still moving forward and you can still keep going. You’re not where you started. This mindset is much more empowering. By accepting the journey as it is and yourself right where you’re at, in any journey and any time you can reduce the suffering along the way. And you don’t have to indulge with the shame monster. And let’s face it, that bitch sucks. Remember though, it’s a practice. Even just remembering the spiral takes practice. When you find shame or negative self talk come up trying to hijack your vibe just gently remind yourself about the spiral, that nothing has gone wrong here and this is part of the process. Keep on ‘ them cupcakes.