Persist Till You Prevail. We’ve seen many of us fall by the wayside. We’re called Creatives. Yet, we struggle to create the mindset that will keep our bodies and spirits from sliding off the path which gives us joy and satisfaction. The challenge is to Persist. The goal is to Prevail.
I Have Persisted. Over boulders in my way. Under bridges where trolls lurk at every turn. Am I boasting? You betcha, though God and a great support network had a lot to do with it. Plus maybe my rat-dog stubbornly stupid refusal to give up.
Alice’s Survive and Thrive Secrets. Five rules for life’s risky road were planted deep in me by Grandma when I was young, and I’ve nurtured them some since. I share those seeds in my next few posts. The overall message being Persist Till You Prevail.
What Do I Mean by Prevail? Do I mean fame and fortune? Don’t turn those puppies away if they scratch at your door, but they’re not my thesis here. To Prevail is what my top-line title states and my bottom-line belief dictates. Survive and Thrive. Get past whatever you encounter. Don’t expect easy. Survive to Thrive and tell about it, because we must always share good news.
What Do I Mean by Thrive? Muster the strength to pick up your life, and celebrate your very existence. You made it this far, battered and bruised maybe, but still Present. That, like me not being crushed by boulders or devoured by trolls, is a miracle.
Present Perfect. So, here’s Survive and Thrive Secret #1. Be the Best You Can Be in the Present. The best you can be, not the best there ever was, or the best expected by whomever’s been flogging your psyche for almost ever. Your ma, your pa, Saint Francis. I expect of you, only the best that you can manage to be on any given day in any given moment. You should expect the same.
The Best You/I/We Can Manage is Good Enough. Better than good enough. Your Personal Any Morning Best. That’s a diamond, my friend, subject to polishing perhaps, but worth a fortunate fortune all the same.
In the Interests of Full Disclosure. My own consciousness lost the gist of that last paragraph for a while. The concrete of forgetfulness paved my path, honed it into hobble-stones that delivered a direct hit to my psyche more than once. A cautionary tale you must remember when tempted to overlook the glint of the jewel you already are, or misjudge it not glinty enough.
Be Gentle with Yourself (And so the Exercise Begins). Identify goals that are Realistic for You. Not for whomever you’re alleged to be less whatever than. Realistic/Doable/Workable Goals for You. Be compassionate. Cutting somebody a break begins at home.
Brainstorm Those Compassionate-with-Yourself Goals. Get someone who really loves you to join in, or make it a solo storm. A bottle of wine could help, or a pot of strong tea if you prefer. Make mine cabernet sauvignon, please.
Write Them Suckers Down. Do not edit. Don’t say, “That’s stupid,” or “This won’t work.” Remember the psyche-floggers I mentioned earlier? These dismissive self-critiques are echoes of her/his/their voice. Ignore it. Write down every syllable. Then leave the list alone for a bit, maybe even a day or two.
The Cooler Consideration. Again, do not edit. Guided by self-compassion, prioritize Your Realistic Goals. Start easy, not with the biggest thunderclap on your brainstormed list. Now, make a new list from the new sequence you’ve created.
Print That List in a Large Font. Hang it everywhere you hang. Your laptop lip, the fridge door. Do not laminate. Periodic tweaking, always in self-compassion mode, is encouraged.
Go After Those Goals at Psyche-Sensitive Speed. You are Present Perfect now, Lovey (as Grandma used to call me). Survive and Thrive Secret Number One is done and done.
Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com
A Wrong Way Home – Alice Orr’s Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 1 – is a FREE eBook HERE. Enjoy!
A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5 – is available HERE. Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving. “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “The best one yet!” “Budding romance sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”
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A Christmas Carol Sings to Me Because, as a storyteller, I long to decode its secret. I need to know why it has remained the narrative star it is for so very long with such a vast audience. What exactly did Charles Dickens create that keeps us coming back year after year to be absorbed yet again by this tale?
A Christmas Carol Sings to Me Because it is essentially a ghost story, filled with things that go bump in the night, most literally, in Scrooge’s case. In the old Alistair Sim film version, which I favor, the gloomy black and white medium, the booming apocalyptic sound effects, Ebenezer’s perpetual scowl. All of it draws me back again year after “rolling year.”
A Christmas Carol Sings to Me Because, as a human being on the path of my life in this world, there is a wound in my heart. It is a deep hole, bored by the continual dropping of hot coals of malice or neglect onto that spot when I was very young. This hollow place begs, every day in every way, to be filled, and the only way to fill it is with love. But this love must be received and absorbed, and the problem is that the heart surrounding the wound has been singed by those hot coals into believing itself unlovable.
A Christmas Carol Sings to Me Because Ebenezer offers us an answer. He points us toward a road to take to a place where healing can happen, and that place is within ourselves, within each of our hearts. Action is required, of course, as is always the case where redemption stories are concerned, and Scrooge’s story is about redemption for sure. That action is love, in its active verb form. Please, indulge me if I now relate that call to action to myself.
A Wrong Way Home
Gratitude Attitude Writer’s Style. “At this time of the rolling year,” as our great storytelling mentor Charles Dickens wrote in A Christmas Carol, gratitude feels obligatory, or maybe just appropriate, if you are more comfortable with that.
Alice Orr – 
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