Progress is not always in the direction you want it to be

[Battle_Weary]

I really wish we had known that progress is not necessarily a straight line. It can and does go off in any direction at all. Sometimes it doesn't appear to be progress at all, but looking back, it is.

[JigsawAnalogy]

I totally agree with this!

Honestly, I *did* know that, or I should have. I used to teach workshops for people to learn about domestic violence, and one of the big things we always said was that progress is a spiral, not a straight line, and even though it sometimes seems like we're going backwards, we're really always moving forwards. But that doesn't mean that I understand it for real. Just because I know something in my head, it doesn't mean I actually *know* it.

So it's a real struggle for me, when I feel like I keep on moving backwards. It's a big help to have people in my life who can see the progress from the outside, and assure me it's actually happening!