Not every day has to be a big day. I’m learning that, seemingly over and over again. Sometimes, the smallest progress is the hardest gained. Sometimes, the small details add up to something much bigger, like a pointillist painting or a mosaic.
I love thru-lines and themes and big picture thinking, but I am finding what is most healing and most grounding right now is to take a careful, close look at the day-to-day. Some patterns smack us in the face and often those hurt, but what about the patterns we’re missing, simply because we’re not taking a close enough look?
When things and situations hurt, the temptation is to paint the wrong and the wrongdoers in very broad, caricature-like strokes. It takes a lot of love and patience (mostly for and and with yourself) not to gloss over the painful details. That’s why I recommend trying to check in with yourself daily. 
Some of us don’t have the time to journal several pages today, although that’s a wonderful practice that was made popular by Julia Cameron, author of The Artists Way. When you have a lot going on, you may not be able to “steal” an hour away from work, which is why lately I’ve found that this One-Line-a-Day journal can snap you back into the present. If you can’t steal an hour, steal a few moments just to check-in.
Kristin West 