I’m sure it would sound a lot less selfish if I were talking about encouraging others, but today my focus is really all about me.

I’m reminded of the “cour” in encourage; it’s a reference to the heart. To be encouraged is to “take heart.” When I become discouraged, I’ve lost heart.

I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that the last couple of days have seemed like one struggle after another–or more accurately, perhaps: one, prolonged struggle.

So often we are reminded to be gentle with others, and to offer them encouragement. I think it’s equally fitting to be gentle with ourselves at times, and to find the means to draw up our own encouragement when we need it the most. It’s exactly at those moments when I feel most disheartened that I need to take the time and the space to once again find (or make) my center.

Not that I can do that alone, that’s for sure. I’m happy to have people around me who genuinely care about me. And for that I’m grateful. At the same time, though, it’s important for me to remember to look toward that inward source as well–especially during those moments when I seem to have lost heart.

Gah, this post is getting a bit too maudlin–not where I was trying to go with all of this.

Simply said: “today” was hard, yes–but I need not lose heart in the moment.

One quick quote and that’s it for this entry:

We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion.                                             –Thoreau