Progress Sometimes Feels Like Going Nowhere – Part II – Tightrope Walking

I am blatantly retelling a metaphor I heard in a meeting last week.  But I don't think the teller will mind…

Recovery is like walking a tightrope, but not in the way many people think of it—as tentatively taking one step after another, unsteady, unsure, risky, fearful, dangerous.

According to my friend's telling, when a person walks a tightrope, he isn't walking from one end to the other.  He's falling down from one end to the other.  As he crosses the expanse on his tightrope, the walker carries a long pole for balance. With each step, he falls a little to one side, shifting the bar to the other side to compensate.  Each step is a process of falling and recovery, of falling and recovery. 

My friend in the meeting suggested that each moment of recovery is where we meet God on the most honest level. We don't feel our need for a higher power until we really need one.  Without falling, we are never required to try anything new. We are never required to grow.  If we fall, we must do something differently in order to reach the other side of whatever expanse we are trying to cross.  Growth is rarely a matter of taking several steps in a straight line, even though to people who don't see the internal life of the tightrope walker, it may appear to be so. 

Another way to think of oneself living life and pursuing recovery is as a pendulum. We swing back and forth across a balanced middle. In the midst of our disease, we swung wildly, barely seeing that middle.  As we mature, we usually swing more slowly and don't necessary fly as wide away from the center as we used to.

But back to the tightrope.  Before we get much awareness of ourselves or of true recovery, we approach canyons and open expanses with trepidation. We take a deep breath and promise ourselves that we can make it across.  It's only a few steps.  We just have to keep our path straight.  When our assistants and friends come to us with a balancing pole, many of us shake our heads and claim we don't need it.  It will be too heavy, we insist. It would impair our progress. 

Then, no matter how strong we start out across that expanse, we each, inevitably, begin to fall.  Those of us who agreed to take the pole but have not yet learned how to use it throw it from our hands. Those who refuse it are out of luck from the get-go. We falling to one side.  What little we know about recovery is not enough to keep us on top of that rope.  The only thing we can do was grab onto that rope before we fall completely.

We cling to that rope, hanging on with our feet dangling.  We might try this for a long while, pretending we are some kind of hero in a spy movie, muscling our way across the canyon with our hands. But even the strongest among us can't move forward that way for too long. We have to stop at some point.  We stop and simply hang on.

That's what some of those plateaus I talked about in Part I of this post feel like.  We are merely hanging on.  Maybe someone gave us some techniques to use to recover, but we don't always know how to employ them all.  We aren't used to trusting a higher power.  We aren't used to doing things any other way than the way we've always done them.  We dangle from the rope and wait.  

At this point, some people let go.  Some people relapse.

Others of us are fortunate and brave.  Somehow, we take a rest and get back on top of the rope.  Usually, it's our higher power that manages this feat, but we must be willing.  This time, when someone hands us a balancing pole, we learn how to use it.  We watch other tightrope walkers and see how it works.  And it all eventually comes to together, sometimes after multiple turns under the rope.  We realize that we don't have to muscle through life anymore.  We just feel ourselves fall and move that pole. 

Did you read that?  We feel ourselves fall and move the pole.  This depiction of recovery explicitly states that we will not be urge or symptom free 100% of the time.  Recovery isn't about that.  Sometimes, the addictive thoughts go away.  Sometimes, they do not.  In either case, it usually takes time for them to leave us. 

Recovery is about how we react to those urges and thoughts.  It's about not going crazy or freaking out when they happen.  Even if we act on ED impulses, it is to our detriment to think it's the end of the world.  All we have to do is move the pole slightly.  It's a barely perceptible movement sometimes. We learn how to accomplish these slow, steady movements over time.  We learn how to not completely lose our minds (most of the time) and change one thing in our lives. We do one thing differently.  We discard something that used to work for us that no longer works. We find a new way to handle a situation.  We move that pole.

And we find the middle again.  We can walk forward. 

This is such a different image than the hero or the whirling dervish that picks herself up and does everything possible to stay in recovery. Sometimes, these wild attempts at changing our lives do more damage than good.  Maturity in recovery means we get a little more discernment—at least a lot of the time.  Or maybe it's simply that we start being able to see the difference between extreme and prudent action.  

Risk-taking is essential.  Tightrope walking is inherently a risk!  I'm not saying we live our lives in a boring way and always make "safe" decisions.  But we can make smart moves instead of panic and fear-driven ones.  Recovery helps us do that. 

I feel that recovery is helping me do that, even if I still find myself driven by fear no again.  At least I can see it now, and move that pole. 

Progress Sometimes Feels Like Going Nowhere – Part I - Plateaus of Progress

For me, progress in recovery is a funny thing.  I've described it as a slow spiral upward, where sometimes you're lower and sometimes you're higher, but you are always higher than where you used to be—on average.

Another way I see it is as a series of terraces or plateaus on our way up a mountain.  We find the mountain when we first get into recovery. This is a huge step, and we find ourselves on plateau one.  It's all new, all cool, and all special.  Early in recovery, we may even jump up two or three plateaus.  It's an awesome ride!  It all feels new... until it feels old...

Eventually, we end up on a terrace or plateau where we chug around for a while, trying to figure something out or just hanging out, it seems.  Some people call it the three steps forward, two steps back syndrome—or the two steps forward, one step back syndrome, where we feel like we're sliding back down the hill. 

While we're stewing in this place of zero-progress, we may get glimpses of that next plateau, but we can't figure out how to get there or why we sometimes don't even want to get there. During this time, some of our symptoms may, in fact, get worse.  We may not notice it for a while, but eventually, the weirdly elementary things we are doing grab our attention.  We feel like idiots in recovery, like we're stuck.  And we often overlook areas of our life in which we are improving. 

These plateaus instigate such a mix of emotions.  We might be doing all the "right" things, but we seem to be going nowhere.  Or we go somewhere and then fall back—repeating the pattern a dozen times.  When you are on the plateau, remember that nothing is lost or wasted, that you are learning.  Because, eventually…

One day we look around and – WOW! – we're on the next plateau!  How did we even get here? 

What happened?  It's like we had an epiphany or are just now realizing that we don't want things we used to want or do things the way we used to do them.  It's exhilarating and validating in so many ways…

And it's usually followed by another slow churn on a plateau.  Borrrring.  We may take a couple more quick leaps up the mountain, but the plateau is inevitable.

I've come to realize that these sudden jumps are not so sudden.  We do a lot of work as we circle those plateaus.  We learn many things, we try new ways of behaving, we fail, we succeed.  We experiment.  We learn.  And eventually, all these disconnected attempts and mistakes and learnings come together.  We arrive at a new place.  It's that moment of connection that makes it feel like we graduated all of a sudden. 

Life is about accepting that plateau and TRUSTING it. I have to learn to trust myself and my higher power.  In the beginning, recovery is all about releasing the self and relying wholly on a higher power.  Later recovery is no less about HP, but for me, more time in program has also required me to regain trust in myself.  Regaining that trust has entailed some mishaps, but I have come through those a better person, even if it meant extra pounds or other consequences I might not have liked or that really might not have been the healthiest way to go.

Continuing in recovery means believing that my higher power truly enables me to be the person I was meant to be, not the person covered up and weighed down by addiction and eating compulsions.  Whereas in the beginning of recovery, I am taught that I can never trust myself, later in recovery, I must learn that I CAN.  This is a difficult mental shift, and one that some people don't manage to make.  For them, they repeat steps one through nine of the 12 steps over and over, or end up having to act out so that they can start back from step one—the familiar.

If I see recovery as an evolving thing, I get to acknowledge the progress I make over time.  I don't completely lose touch with the old way I made decisions or think I know everything, but I don't discount myself and all the things I have learned.

For me, the twelve steps and recovery are useless if they are nothing but a big cycle I go through again and again in the same way.  I think programs of recovery are designed to take us to somewhere new.  As humans, we are designed to grow.  My recovery reflects that.  For instance, I use all 12 steps, but not in the same way or at the same pace or even with the same kind of attention as I used to.  But of course, it can be difficult to remember that when I’m on the boring, no-movement plateau.

It's a tricky thing when we get to this point of learning to trust again.  When our eyes have been open for a while, and we start seeing the cracks in some of our old recovery ideas, it can be scary.  Is this meeting that I've gone to every week since I started really not for me anymore?  Is this person I looked up to really full of crap?  Is this coping mechanism that used to work for me not working anymore?  Is the way I do my reflections and inventories still effective?  Are the habits that once kept me sober now weighing me down and discouraging me?

We have to ask these questions, and when we do, there might be a few steps forward and back again.  It can feel like we are making no progress or like we are losing something.  It can feel like we aren't being as "good" as we used to be.  But we have to take a holistic look at our lives.  Is EVERYTHING really going downhill?  Or are we struggling in some areas more than we used to and EXCELLING in others?  Are we improving anywhere?  If all we see is backsliding, there might be a problem.  If we have not found healthy ways to fill in the spaces left by the recovery techniques we have left behind, we may need to check ourselves and talk with someone.  When we feel ourselves sliding downhill, it might simply be a signal that we need to try something new—change therapists, change meetings, change some of our habits or recovery methods, change SOMETHING. It doesn't have to be a crisis. 

In any case, I live for those days when I feel like I finally "get" something that I didn't get before.  I know that those breakthroughs are products of weeks and months and often years of work, but they feel like miracles.  And I think they are.  They are slow-working miracles with big payoffs.

Take a look at your life.  Are you on a plateau?  Can you see the next step?  Do you not know how you'll get to where you want to be?  Maybe you don't have to know. Maybe you are in just the right spot, learning just the right things, laying the groundwork for even greater things to come.  Not all of recovery feels the same.  That's because you are changing.  Let yourself change and let it be slow if it needs to be slow.

I'll discuss this weird feeling of, "Am I making progress when it feels like all I do is make mistakes?" in part two of this post. 

Non-Linear Recovery

I used to think people with eating disorders inhabited one of three spaces: in the disease, in recovery, and recovered. I thought people cycled through those phases, perhaps returning to one place or another along the way. Many times in support, 12-step, or therapy groups, a member will say, “I’ve been there before,” or, “I’m back in that place again,” or, “I’m afraid of going back to that place.” According to that view, I’ve been in recovery since 2004, and I was in the disease from 1998 until then. According to that view, I am climbing some sort of mountain or walking down a road of recovery, where I get ever farther away from where I started, and if I find myself in a place that seems like something I’ve seen before, I’ve somehow magically been transported to an earlier pit stop in my recovery. I’ve fallen backward.

I do not agree. For one thing, you could say I was in recovery for a brief period in 1999. You could say I was “in recovery” multiple times during that pre-2004 period. If someone looked at my life since 2004, he or she would certainly find times that could be classified as “in the disease” as well as times when I operated as a truly recovered person.

I am convinced that there are more than three places, and that those places are not linear. The terms “in the disease,” “in recovery,” and “recovered” are too convenient and simple to be altogether true. Sure, they describe very important eras within the life of someone with an eating disorder, but if I try to define my life in those terms, I feel pretty hopeless.

If I lived in this rigidly defined mindset, I would ask myself again and again, “Why am I in this place again? Why am I doing this? I thought I was past this.” I might devalue truly healthy moments, when I lived free of the ED, if I looked at my life since 2004 as exclusively one thing: in recovery. And I might exaggerate the darkness of all the days before 2004 if I consider saw it all as “in disease” time. It makes my progress seem like an unending struggle when, in fact, I had many lengthy periods of respite and many leaps in growth.

Every day in my life is a new one. It cannot be defined in terms of disease, recovery, and recovered. At any point, I might identify more with one of those terms, but the truth is that even when I am struggling with the disease and when I feel I am overeating or exercising too much, I am still healthier and more mature than I was during some times when I considered myself more “recovered.”

Yes, I want to eventually live in “recovered” full-time. I’m not there yet, but I certainly shouldn’t eliminate the possibility that I have been somewhere that looks an awful lot like “recovered” before. And I shouldn’t eliminate the possibility that any time I feel “recovered,” thousands of other states exist simultaneously. I may be recovered, but am I really healthy? Or enlightened?

I remember time periods when I felt free of the disease. I remember what I was doing, how I felt, how I related. That girl may not have been using food to cope, but she dealt with anxiety simply by organizing it out of her life, not by feeling it. She didn’t let people in. Certainly, my life was less rocky and angst-filled with fewer people in it; it was also less rich. I didn’t eat nearly the variety of foods I now enjoy regularly without bingeing or freaking out. To “keep” recovery, I had to make my days all very similar and predictable. I don’t have to do that anymore. But I will admit that my eating is not as steadily “perfect” as it once was.

At the very least, I am more myself now than I have ever been. The term “authentic self” has evolved into more than meaningless therapeutic jargon for me. It is how I live my life. In this life, I pursue my dreams, something I never did before. As I enter into new territory with my job, with music, with relationships, and with myriad other endeavors, I see how strong I am.

But at the same time, all these new experiences pile more stressors on. I can slip into ED thoughts and behaviors almost without realizing it. Every week is different. I veer more toward the ED some weeks and less toward it other weeks. It could even vary day to day.

Do the times I struggle mean that I am back in the disease? Do they mean that I have taken a step backward in recovery? No. I will never go back to those places, and I will never lose the recovery I have. My behaviors may not be what I want them to be, but I handle those behaviors far differently than in the past. I deal with them in a way that allows me to slowly move past and away from them rather than shoving them away as I did in previous years of recovery.

Should “recovered” be my all-encompassing destination? I don’t think so. It is one goal—one goal among many others, a goal than enables other achievements and a goal that is possible to attain only by reaching other goals.

Recovery does not follow a clear-cut timeline or maturity model. A person rarely gets to the “next step” in recovery, never to visit characteristics of previous steps again. Every person’s trajectory is very different. I may think that I have gone “back to step one,” that the behaviors I’m doing now are exactly the same as they were three years ago. I may think, “I moved past this! Why am I struggling in the same way again?” But am I really struggling in the same way? No. I am in a different place in my life.

How do I know that? Well, I am able to forgive myself more easily. My eating, although sometimes not what I would want it to be, does not determine how I feel about myself throughout the day. I am not ignoring these eating slips either. I am actively investigating them and learning new things every day. I am relating to people differently. I am taking risks. My life IS different. I am not in the same place again. If I stay curious and keep going, I will move past this place, too. I do not need to be afraid.

Refusing to believe in a linear timeline for recovery removes my tendency to judge others. People recovering from eating disorders sometimes refer to people as “not as far along in recovery.” It’s easy to label people that way and to pretend that I have been where those “newer” people are and have moved past it. But actually, where they are is very different from any place I’ve ever been. They have their own lives, their own personalities, the particulars of their disorders. I have my own. I might be able to relate, but I cannot say that I have been “in that place.” I can learn from even the “newest” person in recovery. That person may have already learned things that I do not know. They may be in a period of greater struggle, but that does not mean they are any further back in recovery than I am. I struggle, too, but my struggles are different. I acknowledge personal milestones and never have to give them back after a slip.

“The only direction is forward.” I believe this. I’m not sure who first said it or even where I heard it the first time, but it holds true. When I start getting down on myself because I’m “doing the same old thing” again, I ask myself, “Am I really doing exactly the same thing?” Usually, I am handling things a bit differently. Often, my food behaviors seem more amplified simply because I am willing to take a magnifying glass to them in ways I could not in previous years. I am moving forward. I am learning new things. Although my eating may not be where I want it to be, any number of other wheels in my life are rolling forward and getting stronger. The strengths I’m building in other areas will help me gain more mature eating patterns as well.

Sometimes I wonder if this new view is just a way of granting myself license to do whatever I want with food. Maybe it is. And maybe that’s what I want. I want to allow myself anything. Like any child, I might abuse that privilege at first. But only by building my own structures within that permission do I learn to behave more maturely with food.

This goes for anything in life. We are always moving forward. We are never stagnant unless we stop being curious, reflective, and inquisitive about our lives. If we ignore our lives and what happens around us, yes, we may stunt our growth. But most of us do not totally ignore our lives. Even if we move slowly, we move forward. Once a person learns something, she owns that learning forever. It could potentially get buried under other thoughts, but it remains, ready to be unearthed by a circumstance or feeling.

You are always moving forward. I know I am. I may feel disappointed in myself at times, but I handle disappointment differently than I did in the past. It’s time to appreciate where I am and actively grow from there. Every place in recovery is new.

Giving Up

I never give up. And I give up all the time. This is one of life’s great paradoxes.

Most people shun the idea of giving in. I often hear my own voice saying things like, “You can’t let go of this one. You can’t give in. Just a little farther. You’ve come this far; don’t give up now. Keep stretching. You can do this. There is enough. You can make it.”

But how many times, for the sake of sanity and happiness, do I also hear, “You can let this one go. Release. Surrender. Loose your grip. Take it easy. Rest now. You are not in control of outcomes; just let go. Give it up. Just give a little.”?

The same phrase, moved into a different context, reframes life and the way I live it. People claim it takes more strength to refuse to relent, to march onward despite aches and pains. For me, however, the endless march comes fairly naturally. Of course, I have plenty of moments when passivity and inaction take hold. But here, I’m focusing on the many, many times when I commit so fully to a task or ideal that I may never release it. I will hold onto it until I see completion.

Certain projects or ways of thinking evolve into monolithic dedications. I devote undue time and resources (internal and external) to “high priority” ideas that seem to have been labeled “high priority” without any cause.

I may decide that, to save money or reduce stress, I will take time every night to make lunch for work the next day. A task that serves as a sort of self-caring convenience can become a monotonous task that my obsessive-compulsive side refuses to relinquish. I will make the lunch every night because I have committed to doing so, even if it’s one in the morning before I get home. Over time, I’m exhausted and resentful of the activity. I want nothing more than to go to bed. But I might continue just because the act provides me safety and the illusion of self-care.

In the past, I also stayed true to certain spiritual ideas for years simply because I had decided at some point that they were true—based on no evidence whatsoever. To realize that I retained beliefs simply because they had been taught to me over and over again stung to the core. I couldn’t imagine life without those beliefs. It took a long time to lay them down and walk forward, even though they caused unfounded guilt, stagnation, confusion, and more. When I finally moved on, I discovered more glorious realities and ideas that I ever could imagine. It takes great faith to leave a kind of faith sometimes.

This same notion applies to former ideas I’ve had about food (good/bad, scary/safe), about what it meant to be a good employee or person, and about all sorts of tasks I’ve had assigned to me on the job or given to me in everyday life.

Oftentimes, when I feel worn down or bored, I discover that I have been striving for perfection in some area of my life. That eternally fruitless quest for an ideal always leads to never-ending projects, feelings, and beliefs that harm me and keep me from doing things I enjoy. Endless pursuits distract me and prevent the growth I truly want.

In those instances, I have to give up. I have to stop fighting the uncomfortable feelings. I have to give up trying to change an unchangeable situation. I have to let go of ideas that bring me supposed comfort but end in pain.

This means I may end up crying for hours in my apartment. I may have to take deep breaths to make it through a tedious or triggering meeting. I may have to admit that I don’t believe what I used to. All of these actions place me square in the middle of a liminal space—a space between, where I have left something behind but have not yet found the new.

For instance, I finally stop moving long enough to feel sad or disgruntled, and then I have to piece together exactly what provoked that emotion. I may even have to formulate an action to satisfy the feelings. I may be just need to accept my tears.

Breathing deeply during a meeting may open up space for me to examine exactly what is making me so uncomfortable. Do I need to say something? Not say something? Work on resentments toward another person? Is it simply that my body needs food or a pit stop?

Leaving old beliefs behind may mean uncertainty about what I believe. To live in that space is to live without explanations, without reasons. This can be hard for know-it-alls like me who appreciate pat statements and decisiveness.

In all of these situations, I give in. I give up something. I let go. I surrender.

However, in all of these situations, I don’t give in. I keep walking. I keep investigating. I keep living.

I give up an old way of living but do not give up living altogether. That is my truth for the day.

When Words Are the Problem

You’d think that, as a writer, I would say, “Words are the solution!” But no. Sometimes—in fact, most of the time—they are the problem.

We have all of these words—all this language—and yet, how many of us actually manage to say what we mean? History is fraught with misunderstandings, he-said-she-said, bogus interpretations, poor phrasing, and flat-out carelessness. Think Shakespeare, think Jane Austen, think Three’s Company.

How many times has the person you’re speaking with heard things you never said? And how many times has adding more words only made a bigger mess?

We communicate via so many channels all of the time. People read body language, pauses between words, eye flickers. We can move and touch each other in ways that communicate infinitely more than twelve pages of writing ever could. Despite the infinite communicative capacity of our bodies, we find ourselves in a world centered on words.

Phones remove faces from conversation; texting goes even further. We have to convey personality with the words and symbols we choose, which often provides an inaccurate reflection of the true emotions at play. We give up very few secrets; whereas, in person, the truth is often easier to detect.

Thank goodness for video on the internet, or else the Web could completely collapse into a tangled scrapheap of words, where real people no longer exist, only language and our fitful attempts to inject tone or personality into the figures we type. The internet is a dangerous place for personal communication.

Regardless of our culture’s ever-growing reliance on virtual communication, I have a difficult enough time expressing myself in person—at least in a way that comes across as intended. Am I a linguistic lummox? I feel so rarely heard and so often like the inflictor of unintentional pain. If I waited until I could think of a perfect way to say something, I’d never say anything. So, unfortunately, what comes out of my mouth often lacks the tact and kindness I envision.

Fie you, words! You always get in the way of what I’m trying to say.

Since I thus far have proved myself unable to bring my on-the-spot speech to the level I desire, I am choosing to cultivate other methods of communication. Although I have greatly improved my ability to say what I mean, it is nowhere near where I would like it. I’ve concluded that verbal communication is something that will only improve with time, growth, and experience. By studying language for years, I’ve topped out on any kind of unnatural progress that could be made.

So if you see me dancing about, gesticulating wildly, touching more people, painting more pictures, making more collages, or using more grunts and squeals than words, you’ll know why. A picture’s worth a thousand words? Well, I’ve heard sighs that say twice as many.

The Small Stuff

Sometimes, a small change does the trick. Sometimes, you only need a baby step. Creativity queen SARK would call it a “micromovement.” Just do the tiniest part of a thing—and then stop. You don’t have to do any more. You can continue if you want, but you don’t have to.

I’m practicing this now, with this very blog. At the moment, I am not resorting to small-stepping for lack of motivation, but for lack of time. I need (and desire) to eat dinner and finish other things, but I want to get some thoughts down, too. So I’m writing at least a portion of this blog first, urging us all to celebrate the little accomplishments in our lives before moving on.

Every tiny action we take leads to the fulfillment of a greater goal, just as even the shortest sentences, put together, create an entire blog. The achievement of the goal needn’t be elevated above all the steps it took to get there. The pieces make the whole.

When the whole overwhelms us, it’s time for tiny movements. And I disallow the berating of ourselves for only making a small movement! Be proud. A little is more than nothing.

Sometimes, when unmotivated, I have to give myself a break and let the laziness or apathy run through me, absolutely embracing the doing of nothing. Then, the motivation mysteriously returns on its own. On the other hand, when chronic procrastination or lack of enthusiasm sticks like a cold I want to kick, I can often peer into my heart and find one small thing I don’t feel so apathetic toward. Completing that one item often gears me up to do another or satisfies me enough that the guilt over my inaction dissipates. In the midst of general indifference, something usually sparks a passion—even if only a fleeting passion—when I search for it.

By taking the steps I want to take as I am motivated to take them, I buck what I think society or other people think is best. I tend to harbor little boundaries or schemas of how things “should” be done in my subconscious. I act and face challenges based on those lies sometimes. Of course I’m not going to want to follow a method or live up to a standard that seems unfair! If a project seems too terrible to begin, it’s usually because I have pre-formed some idea of how it has to be done or what the finished product needs to be. Investigation of that idea often reveals it to be founded in fear or carried over from childhood along with all sorts of other fantasies that don’t actually correspond with reality.

Examine the boundaries you’ve put in place or the rules you think must be adhered to. Maybe those boundaries and rules are helpful. Maybe they are not. Are they even realistic? More than likely, they help at times and hinder in other instances. After identifying boundaries or rules that seem like lies, break a couple of them. Feel liberated, knowing that you can retreat to the safety of those boundaries at any time.

Moving at our own pace, according to beliefs that coincide with our authentic selves, allows us a kind of freedom that removes the need to rebel against external standards. If we are operating according to rules and notions that help us ad reflect life as it truly is, the boundaries of work and law and time don’t seem so oppressive. We can see what needs to be obeyed and what can be fudged or abandoned. When we have opened enough doors to satisfy our naturally roaming, exploring, inquisitive natures, a few padlocks don’t seem so harsh. Perhaps they can even be unlocked later, when we’re done running wildly through the worlds we’ve already made available.

Tasks we had trouble starting because it seemed like they “had” to be done or “should” be completed in a certain fashion aren’t so difficult to begin when external measurements fade in importance. We can tackle challenges and responsibilities freely, at our own pace, with an outcome that may not match other people’s standards or even our own initial impulses. This is the power of allowing (and appreciating) small steps and investigating the validity of our beliefs and standards.

So take a small step today; move into action, even if for only half a second. Then, take a rest. Check out Planet SARK for ideas. Use tiny things to your advantage, from the small steps you make to the tiny changes in your routine that keep you alive. The smallest change can make the most surprising difference. A little reminder from me to you…and me.

(See, all those sentences really add up!)