Practice, practice, practice....

Keep practicing new thinking and new behaviors, even when they feel awkward, even when they haven't quite taken yet, even if you don't get it yet.

Sometimes it takes years for a new concept to move from our mind into our heart and soul.

We need to work at it with the same diligence, effort, and repeated practice we applied to the old thinking and behaviors.

We need to force ourselves to do things even when they don't feel natural.

We need to tell ourselves we can-- even when we don't believe what we're saying.

We need to do it, and do it, and do it - day after day, year after year.

It is unreasonable to expect a new way of life to sink in overnight.

We may have to "act as if" for months, years, before new behaviors and new thinking become ingrained and natural.

Even after years, we may find ourselves, in times of stress or duress, reverting to old ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

We may have layers of feelings and thinking which we aren't ready to acknowledge until years later.

That's okay!

When it's time, we will.

Do not give up!

It takes time.

It takes repeated practice.

Time and experience.

Lessons, lessons, and more lessons.

Then, just when we think we've arrived, we find we have more to learn.

That's the joy of it.

We get to keep learning and growing all of our life!

Keep on taking care of yourself, no matter what.

Keep on plugging away at new ways of thinking and behaving, one day at a time.

Keep on loving yourself, even when it doesn't feel natural.

Act as if for as long as necessary, even if that time period feels longer than necessary.

One day, it will happen.

You will wake up, and find that what you've been struggling with and working so hard at and forcing yourself to do, finally feels comfortable.

It has hit our soul.

Then, you go on to learn something new and better.