Whenever you start to feel the pressure to do more, and your shoulders tense up with stress, and your jaw tightens as you push your way right through your need for rest - turn your face to the nearest window, catch a glimpse of a cloud, a leaf in the wind, let everything in you soften as you notice these natural rhythms too easily forgotten.

We demand so much of ourselves. We forget about the way of the trees. We forget that before flowers bloomed, they were seeds - only springing up in season, never telling us their plans or their reasons for why they grow the way they grow. And yet, when we look at them, we fully know that there is a fullness to their becoming. Unconcerned with human notions of productivity and perfection, rooted in connection, in tune with something more. Oh, how easily we forget, in our rush from one thing to the next. Despite what we have been told, we have built in rhythms of rest, and slow, beautiful progress. Slow. Slowly we grow one day at a time. We realize the wholeness of it all, and leave the pursuit of perfection behind. So when you look in the mirror, more than you focus on the imperfections and the shadows of who you wanted to be, or thought you needed to be, I hope you see a living breathing soul who is traveling courageously right here through the grit of things. This year has not been easy, and this is also true: you are a beautifully radiant example of how hope gets through. Continue to breathe right here in the middle of it all. Continue to breathe before it makes sense. Trust the imperfections will not keep you from being whole.

Journal: When you were growing up, what was your relationship to the concept of perfection?

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