Why I stopped expecting the bad days to stop

So an issue comes up in some form with almost everyone I work with: are we moving too fast, or too slow? Underneath it is the real question- is this even working? Because if it were working, shouldn't the bad days be gone by now?

Here's what I actually tell people, and it applies to whatever you're trying to improve, not just what we do in my group.

Growth isn't a staircase. It's a roller coaster. And the goal was never to eliminate the highs and lows because they're unavoidable. The goal is to raise the average level of your life experience- so the lows are a little less low and the highs are a little (or a lot) higher- so your average level of peace and joy steadily improves. That's what I've achieved and what I teach.

You will still have days where fear runs the show. You'll still get triggered. You'll still catch yourself in an old pattern and think "I already did this work, why is this back?" Feel that fully first- the trigger is real, let it be real. Once you've actually felt it, here's how to look at this: it's not proof that nothing changed. It's proof you're a human, still riding the coaster.

What changes isn't that the lows disappear. In my experience, it's that they get shorter- you catch them faster, and the average altitude of the whole ride goes up, even though the graph still has dips in it.

Honestly, this is the messy stuff a lot of spiritual teaching skips- it doesn't package well. But it's true, and pretending otherwise sets people up to feel like they're failing exactly when they're not.

So if you got triggered this week by the exact thing you thought you'd already healed- ask the real question: how long did this dip last compared to the last one, and how fast did you catch it? Is your average level improving? Judge the trend, not the day, and keep going.