The Sacred Progress of Every Centimeter

A Centimeter & the Friction of “Not Fast Enough”

I recently embarked on a path to healing. It took abnormal bloodwork, bodily disharmony, frustration beyond compare, and almost a full year of hemming and hawing, but I finally chose to do it. With a bindle of spirituality and self-help poised on my shoulder, I stood at the base of a wooded mountain, unsure of what I was getting into but ready, at least, to take the first step.

After that first step, the path immediately obscured.

It’s been more than a month of trudging along this path now. Sunlight has peeped through the thick overhead canopy in brief spurts, and the occasional firefly whispers lovely encouragement to keep me moving along. But often, the way is dark enough that I forget my bindle of wisdom is even there. 

So I trip over a fallen log. Skid on a patch of wet leaves. Slip on an inopportune pinecone. Time after time after time, I’m losing my footing.

That’s why this week, it felt like there was nothing to celebrate. My few accomplishments were scanty, barely perceptible. I knew I’d only moved forward by a centimeter. (If that!)

The mind took this lack of progress as fodder. Your recovery is a joke, it quietly accused me. You should be further along by now.

My expectations for how long it would take to heal far outpace reality. Each centimeter of progress has been taking an enormous amount of effort. Most days, it’s like I’ve gone to war with the mind—and I’m left at the end of it stranded in the battlefield, disappointed by the great chasm between my efforts and their outcomes. 

the Illusion of Scale

That’s how it goes, though, isn’t it? In this fast-paced, expansion-oriented world, we tend to gloss over the fruits of “small” progress. 

Think about it: news reporters, TV outlets, and social media salivate over extremes. It’s unlikely we’ll hear about the Girl Scout who was just awarded a Roller Skating badge versus the one who sold 44,200 boxes of cookies. Unless we break a record, spark a new innovation, surpass another person’s progress, or claim an ultimate victory over something, we’ve collectively decided the accomplishment isn’t grand enough to acknowledge. 

Basically, we’ve come to confuse visibility for validity. And that can trickle down to the individual level, where subtle positive changes get drowned out by the bugles sounding for more! more! more!

But it’s the progress that doesn’t announce itself which is often the most enduring. The earth’s tectonic plates, for instance, shift at an average rate of 1.5 centimeters per year—yet they literally shape our continents and affect global weather events. Rainfall and rivers erode bedrock over time, again shaping our entire landscape. The Girl Scout from earlier might have loved roller skating so much based on that one experience that she pursues it as a lifelong hobby. 

The illusion of scale keeps us from seeing, considering, or having faith in the greater picture. In terms of society, that means we make a lot of hasty and misinformed decisions. And on the individual level, it can foster an ignorance of the beauty of our evolution… and worse, it can make us forfeit any mercy we’d otherwise afford ourselves when times are tough.

Recovery in a Broader Human Context

How this conundrum has come into my awareness is through witnessing—and now personally enduring—recovery. 

Because I work within the criminal justice system, my most frequent exposure to the frustrations of recovery comes from interacting with incarcerated people facing substance use disorders. Every craving incites temptation; indulgence perpetuates shame and guilt; and the relapse sends the whole of recovery back to (what feels like) square one. A centimeter of progress is always at risk of instantly being canceled by a momentary lapse of judgement.  

These cyclical trajectories of change are far from unique to substance use disorders, though. Whether we’ve set out to leave a complicated relationship, unlearn a toxic belief system, process repressed feelings, or simply reorient our thoughts, there is a universality to the human context. 

Regardless if someone wants to recover from using substances, traumatic experiences, an eating disorder, or social conditioning, we’d prefer to have positive change come quickly and painlessly… yet that is almost never the case. 

Repatterning is slow, effortful work. Healing can be nonlinear and its progress invisible. 

And thankfully, none of that makes it any less powerful.

Spiritual Lenses on Centimeters of Progress

The wisdom of the ages echoes to illustrate the significance of everyday progress. In times of tumult, may these words trickle through our consciousness as light-droplets of soul nourishment:

---

HINDUISM

You have the right to work only but never to its fruits. Let not the fruits of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction.

– Bhagavad Gita, 2:47

---

BUDDHISM

Don’t disregard merit, thinking,
“It won’t come back to me!”
With dripping drops of water
Even a water jug is filled.
Little by little,
A sage is filled with merit.

– Dhammapada, verse 122

---

TAOISM

The Way is ever without action,
Yet nothing is left undone.”

– Tao te Ching, verse 37

---

Each tradition may have its own metaphors, but their message is the same. (Even so-called Western traditions, like Christianity, are rooted in commonality. A comparative Bible verse is 1 Timothy 4:16.) 

It’s simple: persevere. Persevere, even when the trail’s end is neither clear nor guaranteed. For in so doing, we shall manifest exactly the conditions which we are meant to grow through. 

Healing is not about the reward of our efforts. It is a process which, done faithfully, will result in sustainable wellness, tireless compassion, and universal understanding. 

And the benefits are hardly for ourselves alone. All may drink from a filled bucket, and through the propensive, symbiotic nature of our existence, the whole world heals when we do. 

Cultivating Grace for the Gradual

Except in rare cases, most of us are karmically bound to untangle our habits piece by piece. We’ve spent years perpetuating false narratives, spinning our own spiderwebs, blocking ourselves further and further from seeing the true nature of things. 

It takes time to even glimpse clarity from that place. But that wink of understanding is the first movement out of the spinhold. It’s what inspires us to flinch. To wriggle. To challenge the suffering we’re bound by. 

As the sages have written, there is power in every action, no matter how small. Even a mark as small as a comma leaves room to take a new breath. One seed can be the start of a grand forest. A single how-do-you-do is sometimes enough to remind a person of their humanity—that they have worth. 

So it is also during centimeters of change, whether in recovery or everyday action. Our choices to interrupt an old, outgrown pattern interrupts unhealthy cycles. They remove energy from our suffering and help us to trod new pathways both in mind and heart. These changes are not merely cosmetic; they’re structural, they take time. New hiking trails are not paved in one day.

Therefore, instead of continuing to audit our progress by measure and morality, we would do well to witness it with grace and love. There’s no need to expect more than a centimeter if there’s only a centimeter of space in which to grow. 

Cosmos in a Centimeter

This healing journey of mine has only just begun. It may only be marked by a centimeter of positive change, but in that centimeter lies the whole cosmos. 

There is nothing about our efforts that is separate from the grand scheme of this world. We endure challenges (sometimes again and again) to learn their lessons, to develop our wisdom and resilience, to get ourselves back to the state of all-knowingness that the sages embody.

All progress deserves grace, and not because it’s inherently impressive. It’s because progress is the byproduct of action. And when we are taking conscious action, we are remembering a deep, fundamental love not only for ourselves and our bodies, but also for our communities and the world at large.

Remember that the universe does not rush its becoming. Neither should we.

– 𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼 𖤣 𖥧 𓋼 𓍊 –