A Constant Becoming

AConstantBecoming

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Audio Reads of Some of My Posts aconstantbecoming.substack.com

17h ago

Mistakes

Can you accept your mistakes? Can you give thanks for the opportunity to learn and to grow? Can you expect that you won’t be perfect and know that you are good enough? But can you also repair what you can and grow as you go? Oh how I hate mistakes. I just got back from playing pickle ball and there’s nothing quite as annoying as making simple mistakes. Whether pickle ball, chess, a conversation, following the GPS. You name it, the simple mistake is something that never fails to create a moment of frustration for me. I think the secret is what happens after the moment of frustration. It’s impossible not to feel the frustration, at least for me. But after it, there are really three choices. I either move past it, learn from it, or let it define me. Depending on the frustration, the first two are potential solutions, but the last one can be truly dangerous. As you read this I wonder: * What frustrations have you gone through today? * Which of the three paths did you pick? * If the frustration is defining you, can you ask the question why? Letting our frustrations define us is a choice. But it is a choice that does not respect our intent. And our intent is, I think, the truest representation of who we are as humans. As you go through the week, can you learn from frustrations when you can and then let them disappear beneath the water of life. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aconstantbecoming.substack.com
2d ago

A Work In Process

Can you make today about your growth? Can you see the moments you are learning and changing? But can you also appreciate how far you have come? Although you are a work in process, remember that you are beautiful at every step along the way.Of all the things that I’ve been consumed with during my life, probably the most significant is growth. On the one hand, growth feels like a vector. It has a direction and a speed. But thinking about it that way makes it a bit of a test. I wonder if I am growing the right way or if I am growing quickly enough or consistently enough.A different way to think about it is as a process shaped by intent. I can see growth as a continual movement toward the person I’m meant to be even as that person may change from day to day. Of course that makes it harder to measure progress and, at the extreme, means I’m always in the right place. But I think that second definition is closer to where I’m trying to sit these days. As you read this I wonder: * Do you feel like you are growing? Why or why not? * Does the question itself feel like a test? * What if the answer was always yes? How would that sit with you? Evolution is a part of us. We are constantly changing, maybe in large ways and maybe in smaller ones. My hope for you this week is that you can find the joy in your evolution without the assessment of whether it is in the right direction or at the right pace. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aconstantbecoming.substack.com
5d ago

How Far?

How do you balance your need to assess with your desire to hope? How sure are you, not of your assessment, but of the history behind it? How far are you willing to let hope go, from the possible to the improbable to the impossible? May hope guide your steps today as you journey to the joy of impossible. There’s a fine line between reasonable and unreasonable hope. Or is there? So much of what we see in the world is based on how we assess it. It’s not the facts but it’s the reasons behind things, the intentions we assign to others, the mechanisms that we think are operating in the background. What is can be challenging but the far bigger challenges, at least for me, are the why's that I assume behind what I experience. Our hope is often just as constrained by these quiet reasons as our interpretation of today. Of course some things are physically impossible. But most things we hope for are not. Rather, we think they are unlikely or unreasonable. And yet, we hope. So I think the question we need to ask ourselves is how bold should our hope be. As you read this I wonder: * What is the “craziest” thing you are hoping for? * Why do you think it is so crazy to hope for it? * What changes in your world if those reasons are or turn out to be wrong? We have a lot of control over what we choose to hope for. All too often, I’ve constrained my hopes because of stories I’ve told myself about who I am or how the world works. As we close the week, can you let some of those constraints go and see where your hope chooses to fly? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aconstantbecoming.substack.com
Oct 21

Leave Space for Hope

Can you make sure to leave space for hope? In those moments where you want to shut everything out, leave a gap for light to flow in. As much as you may feel alone and unloved, leave space for someone to prove you wrong. Because whether you feel it in this moment or not, that proof will come. Sometimes life just hurts. Sometimes it feels like everything is stacked up in a way that you cannot win. Your best efforts are critiqued or unrecognized. The people you love most are distant. And you feel stuck. And it’s natural to want to close yourself off in those moments, to hide from the pain and wait for things to change. But I wonder whether only waiting for things to change is one of the worst things we can do. It is a surrender to the world around us. It denies our ability to act, to move, and yes, to hope. Because even in the moments where everything just hurts, part of you knows it is going to change. But what hope allows you to do is believe that you can make the change come faster. And I believe this is true because your lens, your filter, is always within your influence. As you read this I wonder: * Where do you most feel the darkness of hopelessness? * What are you doing to open yourself up to new possibilities? * How confident are you that change will come and that you have some control? I can’t tell you how many times my view of the world, myself, and my place in it has been changed by a conversation. I have lost count of how many dark stories I’ve told myself that have proven to be wrong (nearly all of them). My wish for all of us is that we leave space for the idea that the darkness we see may be our lens rather than our reality. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aconstantbecoming.substack.com
Oct 19

The Opportunity of Creation

Can you find the joy in today? Can you release the pressure that surrounds you and find calm? Can you make this day the first day of your next chapter, your best chapter? Can you make your answer yes? Pressure. Yes, it’s a Billy Joel song from my youth but it’s also a very real part of my life and I think most of our lives. We feel it every day, sometimes every moment. We feel the needs of those around us, sometimes stated and sometimes not. We feel our own failures and losses, whether real or imagined. We want to achieve, to progress, to grow. All of that is pressure. But I guess the question I’ve been asking myself of late is why. There’s merit in the desire to improve, to help, and to achieve. But I sometimes wonder what it would look like if we did those things as an act of creation rather than as an act of response. What would it look like to focus more on the possibilities than the obligations? As you read this, I wonder: * Why are we so focused on what we need to do rather than what we get to do? * Why do we feel the need to judge our actions rather than our intentions? * Why do we so often make the perfect the enemy of the good? Maybe we cannot release the pressure that surrounds us, at least not all of it. Some of it comes from outside of us and we cannot change it. But so much of it comes from within us, from the lens with which we view the world. As you begin this week, can you focus on the opportunity of creation more than the test of response. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aconstantbecoming.substack.com
Oct 16

Numb

Are you at peace or are you stuck? Do you feel calm and ready for what is next or are you closer to numb? ... know that peace has flow and stuck does not. I’ve definitely had times in my life that I could call peaceful but that were actually closer to numbness. And I think the two concepts are close enough for us as humans to spend a moment on the difference. Numbness is the state of being where we deny impact, where outside forces cease to really bother us. But it is also a state where nothing brings us joy, where honestly, nothing brings us much of anything. And frankly, we can easily be numb without being at peace. We’re numb because we stop looking, stop feeling, but that doesn’t make us peaceful. The way to tell for me is whether there is movement. Peace comes with movement while numbness suppresses it, as it suppresses everything. As you read this I wonder: * Where do you feel stuck these days? * Do you need to be stuck? Do you need the stuck thing to change? Can you go around it rather than going through it? * Can you find your way back to the flow that makes peace a possibility? It’s easy to harden yourself to the world, to tell yourself that things don’t matter, and maybe even to believe it. But that’s not the path to peace, because denying the world is not the same as embracing it. As we close out the week, can you embrace the world, even with the hurts, and still see the light of peace? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aconstantbecoming.substack.com
Oct 14

Finding Peace

When peace is elusive, maybe you need to look less intensely. Maybe peace comes from not looking. Maybe peace will find you when you stop looking for it. The first thing most of you will notice is that this intention is not written in the form of questions the way that 99 percent of them are. I don’t know if I was in a mood that day or just speaking my hope to those around me but it’s notable for that at least. But it’s also notable to me for the message that perhaps seeking peace is not the easiest path to find it. I wonder sometimes whether peace is a state of being, a state that requires us to be without seeking. Because, at least for me, seeking peace is like an argument. I want to justify why I should be peaceful. I focus on external factors and how to change them. But, in a world where peace is a state of being not a conclusion, trying to logic my way there can truly never work. As you read this I wonder: * Is peace something you are looking for or trying to claim today? * If so, what would need to be true for you to claim it? * What if instead all that needs to be true is that you allow it in? To me there is something uncomfortable in the notion that changing the world around me is not the path to peace. I long to act on the world, to change it, to make it what will allow me to find peace. But of late I think the world is not trying to bring me peace nor it is trying to deny it to me. Can you believe just a little more that peace is always within you even when it is not within your grasp? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aconstantbecoming.substack.com
Oct 12

The Eye of the Storm

Can you find a moment of calm amid the storm? Can you see that there is peace all around? Can you get to the place where you are not only calm but can bring that to others and to the world? A moment of calm amidst the storm. The eye of the hurricane. We have many different metaphors for tranquility within chaos. The reason to me is fairly obvious. We place great value on finding that moment of calm when it seems like there is noise everywhere. But I think chaos is a state and calm is a choice. Some of you know that I have a my private pilot’s license. Part of the training for that is to simulate an engine failure in your single engine plane. And you practice this many, many times and it is part of the practical test you have to take to get your license. And what’s funny about it is that I think if it happened, I actually would be fairly calm. There’s a set of things to do and then honestly, you do your best and hope for the best. And that brings a form of calm. As you read this I wonder: * What keeps you from being calm when chaos surrounds? Is it actually the chaos or the feeling that you have lost control? * Can you see how much control you have and use it to find a space of calm? * Can your calm matter? Can it be a lifeline to others when they are experiencing chaos? There’s an interesting thing about control. On the one hand, we control very few outcomes entirely, but elements of our life are always within our control, most importantly the stories we tell ourselves. As you start the week, can you fly the plane the best you can and let that create calm for you? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aconstantbecoming.substack.com

Audio Reads of Some of My Posts aconstantbecoming.substack.com

Creator

AConstantBecoming
Years Active

2026
Episodes

75
Rating

Clean
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© AConstantBecoming
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A Constant Becoming