When We Slip Down The Mountain

Monday, I conquered a mountain. Tuesday, I woke up feeling heartbroken and sad. I went on to start my day how I always do by reading The Daily Love. Mastin's post was about the promise of the morning. How life goes on and, each day, we get the chance to make a new decision about how it goes. We can achieve 1% more than we did yesterday. We can forgive ourselves 1% more. We can love ourselves 1% more.

Yet, there I was in that moment with a tear streaming down my face over this one thing that has left me so hung up for the past few months. The one thing I can't seem to get over or through. It is one of those things that is so beyond my own control that it feels like I should have control over it. Does that even make sense?

I have tried so hard to work through this one thing. I've listened to countless lectures. Read books. Memorized quotes. Written blog posts. Talked about it in person. I've tried so many different approaches to just let it go. Give it to the Universe.

And even though the day prior, I had conquered something as physically taxing as climbing a mountain (mere hours after getting back from 120 degree heat in Palm Springs) I was so disappointed in myself to still be bogged down by this one thing I couldn't get over or through. So, I'd go back and read Mastin's quote about achieving 1% more than we did yesterday. About forgiving ourselves 1% more. About loving ourselves 1% more. Yet, there I was... not feeling any of that 1%.

And that's not okay.

I could feel the inner roadblock that only I was causing and that frustrated me even more. Because I knew that I should be feeling that 1%.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I've done a lot of physical, emotional, and mental leg work in the past two years to get where I am today. I wanted to heal. I wanted to conquer. I wanted to live an abundant life. And I've been doing the work to get there... and stay there. But doing the work means uncovering some difficult things.

It means sometimes you're going to slip on your way up the mountain. You'll fall and tumble backwards on an unfamiliar trail that you don't know very well. During the first slip, maybe you only scrape your elbow. On the second slip, maybe you land on a rock and it takes you a bit longer to rise to your feet. By the third slip, you're exhausted and dizzy. But you rise to your feet yet again. You have to. You have to rise to your feet to move forward again. With no guarantee of whether you'll fall again or not. But to do the work, you must be willing to fall again and again and again.

Maybe, for now, the "rising to my feet again" part is my 1% after all...