Don’t forget that breaks to catch your breath, to assess how far you’ve come, to readjust your path are part of the process. Your persistence allows for you to rest when you need it, because life is a journey. There is no end goal more important than you arriving whole and free. -JeKaren Olaoya (CLF)
Take a break today. Allow yourself to use the rest to readjust.
I read recently about how important it is for young children (and all of us) to learn the feeling of futility — to know what it is to try something over and over and for it to not work, because it simply can’t. It’s only when we feel futility around changing something external to us that we can learn to change what is still available to us to change: ourselves, and how we internally relate to whatever couldn’t be changed. This strikes me as a kind of persistence, just as much as persistence that does lead to something external changing. If we persist to the point of finding internal harmony and balance, even in the face of things that are futile, so much more is possible. -Rose Gallogly (CLF)
When has the feeling of futility helped you find something else to be possible?
“May your strength persist like carbon,
Which has enabled all life our solar system knows,
Has known, or will ever know—
From diplodocuses to dandelions;
From blue–green algae to blue whales;
And from the katydids that cling to branches and chirrup through the night,
To the kale that clings to life aboard the International Space Station
And hurtles through the silent, endless night of outer space.”
-From a blessing by Stacey Elza
Where in nature do you find inspiration to persist?
If I had to choose a theme in life, it would be persistence. What is the other option? I have found that I am at times curious where my path will lead and therefore I keep going, even when I am in the midst of pain and despair. Persistence is how I know I want to center love and not pain. -Aisha Hauser (CLF)
How do you center love and not pain?
Sometimes we get by through sheer will, through persisting despite the odds against us. Sometimes, we need to hang on and inch ourselves forward until we are somewhere better.
What do you need in order to hang on through today?
