Celebration and stress abound right now for me! Isn't life exciting? Just finished my long-term substitute preschool teacher assignment last Thursday. This week the district I work for is on spring break, so I've got a couple days to catch up on all things related to my thesis (lord help me), and maybe even read a bit for pleasure (read: I am 95% sure that I will in fact neglect my thesis and instead watch Netflix. I am very good at this process).

At this point I feel like I'm back at square one, trying to figure out where my next paycheck will come from. There are exciting things on the horizon, but they won't come into play until summer. So in the mean time, I've got to let go of my ego and find a way to make it through to June.

I'm reading Self-Compassion, by Kristin Neff, right now at the advice of my therapist. I don't think I realized until this year how harsh I am with myself. I've got incredibly high expectations for where I should be in life right now, and I judge myself immensely for not being "there," wherever the hell that may be.

Once we fall into the trap of believing that things are "supposed" to go well, we tend to think something has gone terribly amiss when they suddenly don't. Again, this isn't a conscious thought process, but a hidden assumption that colors our emotional reactions. If we were to take a completely logical approach to the issue, we'd consider the fact that thousands of things can go wrong in life at any one time, so it's highly likely-in fact inevitable-that we'll experience hardships on a regular basis. But we don't tend to be rational about these matters. Instead, we suffer, and we feel all alone in our suffering.

-Kristin Neff

I'm learning a whole lot about compassion these days, for myself and for others. I suppose that's how we learn best in this life-through experience that includes both heartbreak and joy. Through patience and perseverance I'll find myself on the other side of this season of feeling stuck-of feeling shipwrecked.