It’s Okay That You’re Not There Yet. A Gentle Reminder

It's okay that you're not there yet. You're working towards it & that's what matters.

from the zine Ashlee Craft / Assemblage, Issue 12

Be gentle with yourself as you work towards the changes & beautiful transformations you’re going through. You’re stepping into the things you’re supposed to be, & you’re getting closer to the things that you’re creating for yourself. Not every step you take will lead you to where it hoped it would, but all of it is leading you closer to the things you ultimately want, even if they don’t seem like they are. The doors you open may lead you to strange, indefinable places, but place a little more trust in the instinctive knowledge you have inside you. You are not as lost as you sometimes feel you are.

Newness

This is My New... // Ashlee Craft / Assemblage, Issue 1 - ashleecraft.com

 

This is all new. This is pure newness & it can be whatever I want it to be. There are no rules, no boundaries, no constraints, no limits. I do what I want. I trust my own judgement because I believe in myself & I know how to trust myself, & I’ve learned recently that it is worth trusting myself. Only I can know what is right for me. Only I know who it is that I need to be, & only I can be the hero of my story.

It all makes sense now, newness does. Changes can be comfortable. It doesn’t have to be as difficult as it seems it will be. Beginnings make sense. Constant personal evolution, constantly being reinvented & reborn, makes sense. It is a matter of survival, of finding true happiness, of embracing life. This is how the tides change in my world. The feeling before newness is conflicted. Endings & beginnings mingling together, the last vestiges of sunlight dissolving & fading slowly, intermingling with the light of the moon, a moon which is illuminated by the next day’s sunlight, & it’s all mixed together in one beautiful palette of color, of things ending so that better things can begin, because we can’t know what these better things ahead of us are until we’re ready to let go of the dock, of the bowlines that keep us tethered there. Of course there are things we should hold onto, & promise ourselves we will never let go of. The things that we truly love, the things that make us happier than anything, the things we know are right. But sometimes we hold onto the old things, the things that weigh us down, the things that are no longer what we need them to be, the things we feel we have to keep under our control when in reality we’d be better off if we let our plans & ideas of the way things are be flexible.

It’s all part of continual personal evolution. Letting go of the things that weigh us down so that we’re free to fly. Letting go of everything that no longer make us feel light & happy & brilliant, because trust me, those feelings are out there, waiting for you, & you will find them if you ruthlessly cut out what doesn’t make you happy & enthusiastically seek what does make you feel happy & alive. You will find it. Tell yourself this whenever you doubt in your ability to reach the full potential you know you have, or are afraid to realize you do have, or worry that maybe you don’t have. Repeat these words, this mantra, every time you think the whole world around you is ending, & you’re thinking that maybe there isn’t possibly a way that you will end up with all the beautiful & brilliant things that you deserve. Tell yourself that you will find it, every time you question if you are in the right place, because right now, you are exactly where you are meant to be, & there are better things ahead. Things will get easier if you keep moving forward. Because sometimes the excellence of a new beginning is hidden among the confusing way that newness can feel, hidden among all the things you no longer are mixing with all the things you are just becoming.

This is your permission to make this whatever you want it to be. You know what is best for you.