“Measure what matters”,
That’s the title of a great book by John Doerr.
And for me measuring my mood matters.
I have said it before, but I consider myself in the middle of a long journey,
A journey back to myself.
And these kinds of journeys are often some of the longest we will ever take. Seven years in the forest, 30 years in the moon palace, and even four days and four nights on top of Cadair Idris must feel like an eternity.
These sound like transformational experiences, and there are, but I misunderstood the word transformation for a long time. Transformation doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time, patience, and deliberate and persistent actions, small ones that on their own don’t count for much, but when looked at from a distance start to reveal the bigger transformational picture.
Ask any cross stitcher.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said:
“We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown,
something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.”
So if you are working on something important, or transformational, cut yourself some slack, it might take a very long time, but it will be worth it.
Images:
Here are screenshots of the four months I have been tracking my moon using the Mood App. Image 1 the last four months of 2022. Image 2 the last week of the year.
Coming up
On January 21st I am co-facilitating a one-day winter retreat at Emerson College.
We hope this will be a nourishing way to begin the new year.
If you would like to read more, all the details are below.
A Winter Retreat Day: Listening to Inner Wisdom Tickets, Sat 21 Jan 2023 at 09:30 | Eventbrite
The Moon Palace story can be read here:
Moon Palace, An Inuit Story of Transformation by Martin Shaw – Little Toller Books