00:00 Preview

00:17 Opening

00:52 Introduction

01:41 Today’s Topic

03:30 What it Means to be a “Work in Progress”

04:49 My Journey Thus Far

07:39 Celebrating Yourself for the Small Things

08:28 Trying New Things and Discovering Yourself

10:05 End of episode – make sure to leave a podcast review!

10:32 End Card

Welcome to the GRACED Podcast! A space for everyday magic for your everyday life. We do this through rituals, aligning yourself to your soul’s purpose, and creating Alchemy to heal our mind, body, and spirits so that you can bring in more love and joy, manifest your desires, and believe in your dreams. Listen and watch over at grace.com/podcast and on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Instagram, TikTok and all the places you can find me on social media. Now let’s dive into today’s episode.

💖 Introduction

Hello and welcome to The GRACED Podcast, where we talk about how you can infuse everyday magic into your everyday life. It’s my birthday! Well, by the time this episode airs, it’ll have been yesterday, however, I’m taking it upon myself to celebrate all week. And if you’re watching the video, you might notice a change.

I dyed my hair! It’s pink, purple, with some blue, you can’t really see the blue, but the pink is really highlighted and I’m pretty happy with it. I also happen to be wearing pink. It’s just a very pink type of day by accident. And part of this quote unquote birthday glow up video that I’m trying this out for the very first time, this kind of vlog style episodes. So definitely check out the YouTube for that video.

✨ Today’s Topic

And it’s something new I’m trying and leads us into the way of what the topic of this episode is about because I was like sitting here, I was like, what do I want to talk about this year? You know, is it like lessons that I’ve learned the past year or like the lessons that I’ve learned in my life so far, or you know, what is today about?

So I came up with, when I was writing this episode out, why being a work in progress is perfectly okay. As I take another trip around the sun, I was reflecting and thinking to myself, were there any standout lessons that I’ve learned that I want to share in today’s episode? And that is, perfection is a myth, often to maintain some sort of control, or an image of control, or this safety of having some sort of control to work towards something.

In a world where we can often feel so out of control, like there’s so many external things happening around us all the time, that attaining this perfection, this goal, this image of how our lives should look, or be, is actually our way of maintaining control because there are just so many things outside of our control.

I also think with capitalism, we are largely fed this idea of perfectionism to reinforce beliefs that we are somehow not good enough. That we need another product or service to make our lives better. To fix us. Even though nothing is broken in the first place. And I’m not saying that we don’t need things. Obviously, we need material things to help us live our day to day lives. But this idea of missing something, this FOMO, this yearning for something outside of ourselves is definitely a tactic to sell more things.

✨ What it Means to be a “Work in Progress”

So what does it mean to be a work in progress? And why is that a good thing? To be a work in progress means that you as a person have not finished growing. You are not finished learning, developing, and evolving into your highest potential in this lifetime. You are open to improvement, change, or both, and you’re willing to adapt a growth mindset. It means that you are still in the process of becoming who you want to be, and even if you do become who you want to be, that doesn’t mean that once you reach that point, You won’t have new goals, new challenges, and new mountains to climb.

You’re open to making mistakes, because failure is often how you learn. How you take feedback that then redirects you towards the path that is most aligned with you, your gifts, and your talents. It is a recognition that as a work in progress, personal development and self improvement is a journey that can only be measured by you.

That taking little steps compound over time, and that you continue to take step forwards, even when you haven’t reached your final destination yet. And even when you reach a destination or goal, it actually might not feel all that fulfilling.

✨ My Journey Thus Far

As you know, if you’ve been following me following my journey thus far, I’ve created the Mystic Mondays Tarot and Oracle decks. There’s five of them now, actually six, because I pitched another idea to my publisher and they accepted that pitch. I can’t seem to stop making decks, you guys. But before all of these decks, before Mystic Mondays Tarot was just a seed of an idea, I was wondering what the heck I was doing with my life.

And sometimes I have those thoughts even now, but I never thought in a million years I would be making tarot and oracle decks for a living. And then I launched Mystic Mondays Tarot as a Kickstarter, and it was successfully crowdfunded, and everything seemed to be going fine. But then most of the stock ended up getting damaged, which eventually led me to a publisher because I remember checking boxes upon boxes upon boxes, a sea of boxes in my small one bedroom apartment in LA. just to check if each deck was damaged or not, and most of them were. But, if that didn’t happen, I don’t think I would’ve reached out to a publisher to get some help, because I just couldn’t manage it all on my own at that time. And then I got a publishing deal! And that’s supposed to be a huge milestone in your life.

But I remember when the deck was finally launched, later that year, the same year that I got the deal, in 2018, I remember getting sick, okay? And I didn’t actually celebrate at all. It felt lackluster, actually. This big thing of getting published, this big thing that I wanted to attain, that actually didn’t feel that fulfilling.

This image that I was crafting for myself and what my world looked like just didn’t seem to matter if I wasn’t crafting my inner world as well. Creating that one to one relationship with self. Which is what largely inspired creating Mystic Mondays Tarot in the first place. I really wanted these tarot cards to feel like your best friend, to empower you, to listen to your inner voice, to be relatable and written in a really relatable way, to be vibrant, to be colorful.

All the things that I was missing in a tarot deck, because at that time there weren’t a lot of tarot cards. modern tarot decks. So all of those things that I intended to put in Mystic Mondays Tarot, I realized that I needed to give that to myself. The inner work is underrated but can absolutely shape everything.

Because this journey doesn’t end. It’s not like I stopped with one deck. I’ve made five. The fifth one is in production right now, the Healing Herbology deck, which was also just crowdfunded as a Kickstarter. And then the sixth one has been accepted as a publishing pitch. And clearly I have more ideas, and it doesn’t seem like I’m stopping anytime soon.

✨ Celebrating Yourself for the Small Things

But my point is, this idea of attainment, getting to that big goal, doesn’t really matter if you’re not accumulating these small wins along the way. Celebrating yourself for the small things, whether it’s your birthday or not. Like wow, patting myself on the back for finishing that draft today, or wow, I had writer’s block for a week, and all of a sudden I have this surge of energy to do something creative today, and I’m gonna take advantage of that surge of creativity and run with it. Or, wow, I look really good today. Like, really good. And acknowledging yourself for that. I’m just saying, giving yourself compliments is underrated. And it’s way better than waiting around for someone else to give you a compliment. So if you’re not already, give yourself a compliment today.

✨ Trying New Things and Discovering Yourself

And being a work in progress also means giving yourself permission to be in a state of transition, to allow changes, to be flexible and adaptable, to let your life morph into its highest good. Without you needing to force or control it to be, that perhaps the universe is co creating this future with you and for you.

Because if you aren’t in a state of transition, that simply means that you aren’t growing. And how boring would that be if you weren’t growing? Trying new things, constantly discovering yourself, who you are. And giving yourself permission to experience life to its fullest. And to experiment with what even your unlimited potential even is. And through that, discovering what your boundaries are.

The process of experimentation also means giving yourself permission to fail. Giving yourself permission to fall flat on your face, to possibly be publicly humiliated, but to pick yourself back up again, and again, and again. So that you can do it all over again.

Like the Fool’s Journey or the Hero’s Journey. To not let that stop you from doing what you were meant to do. You are the canvas, the grand masterpiece, the beautiful art, designed in your favorite style. Color palette that is constantly evolving, constantly changing, constantly adding new layers of paint, constantly being sculpted in every era of your life. Will you allow yourself to be a work in progress?

✨ End of episode – remember to leave a podcast review on Apple Podcasts!

Comment on this YouTube video, or send a Spotify or Apple Podcast review for this episode. And let me know how you’re feeling about being in a state of transition? What is your relationship like with perfectionism? And what compliment can you give yourself today? As always, sending you so much grace today and every day. Bye for now!

Thanks for tuning in to this episode. Remember to subscribe and check out more GRACED Podcast episodes for how to apply everyday magic to your everyday life. See you next time!

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