The Art of Gradual Progression
7 minute read
Our lives are an ever-changing development of one’s self through experiences, trials, circumstances, and lessons we pick up along the way. As we proceed in our individual journeys we encounter difficulties that affect us in numerous ways. The goal is to learn from these mistakes or areas of weakness in order to better prepare ourselves for similar occurrences in the future. We try to better ourselves and change habits to achieve a more refined character or being. If you are anything like myself, these changes need to have been perfected yesterday. I put immense weight on all changes I think I should make, and give myself little to no time to work on them. However, after many times of doing this and finally seeing the error, I’d like to discuss the beautiful elegance found in gradual progression.
The wondrous moment that brought upon this epiphany stems from my love of coffee. I found coffee at the ripe age of 17 and have been consuming it ever since. I don’t want to mislead you, however, into thinking I was an addict. I would have a respectable 2-4 cups of coffee per day during the work week, and maybe 1 or 2 cups per day during the weekend. As far as coffee drinkers go, I was comfortably in the mild but frequent coffee user category. That paints enough of a picture to look at last week. I was having frequent stomach aches and decided to cut coffee completely in order to see if that was the issue. Little did I know what side effects lurk around the corner from quitting caffeine cold turkey after a decent time of everyday consumption. On Wednesday I cut out coffee and had headaches all day. On Thursday I had headaches but had some tea, but still irritable and tired. On Friday I had consumed no caffeine at all, and my goodness, in rolled the waves of caffeine withdrawal. We had gone to the zoo for my daughter’s birthday and I was extremely fatigued and “oddly” craving coffee, along with the orchestra of headaches. Once we had gotten back in the car we had to do some errands and I was out like a light. I don’t ever wipe out that quickly in the car at noon.
Later that night, we were heading into bed, and BA-BOOM! I was overwhelmed with an enveloping sense of dread and anxiety. Where in the world did this come from? I had challenges with anxiety a year ago but was doing great until this little treat. Luckily, after having gone through panic attacks before, I was able to regain myself fairly quickly. However, that awful feeling remained with me for a few days afterward. I was swirling in the thought of all that was going on and worrying about an absurd abundance of thoughts that didn’t at all merit worry. I was up against the ropes with my thoughts and was utterly confused as to why I was feeling this way. Then, in an amateur stroke of genius, I decided to look up caffeine withdrawal effects. Lo and behold, the list of possible symptoms impeccably resembled the makeup of my weekend’s complexion. I had headaches, was fatigued, irritable, depressed, anxious, and couldn’t concentrate, AKA caffeine withdrawal to the tee.
Well, where does this common story of cutting caffeine leave us now? The epiphany of why gradual progression is the key to bettering yourself and going through life. If I had made a gradual progression of my caffeine quitting, I would have sidestepped the adverse effects and made a more impactful change. Let’s take this lesson and match it to a more spiritual application.
In 2016, my wife and I converted to the Catholic faith after being lifelong Protestants. Coming into the fullness of the Catholic faith can be very daunting. Even though we had known this was the right decision, we were overwhelmed with the amount of information available through the Catechism, the vast array of Saints and their roles in our lives, the Liturgical Calendar, Holy days of Obligation, Mass rituals, symbols, history, and prayers to be learned. Taking all of this in one giant pill is very hard to swallow. Being the type of person I am, though, I tried to gulp it all down in one fell swoop, without even using water to help it go down. I was in the mindset that I should know all the Catholic Church has to offer yesterday. I felt like I was vigorously trying to catch up. As you probably have guessed, this approach doesn’t work very well and it’s quite frankly impossible (in my experience). I was trying to pray the full rosary every day while committing to Liturgy of the Hours, as well as attend daily Mass when possible, and go to confession as frequently as possible. This is a wonderful goal to reach but I was trying to do it all at once coming from not doing anything at all. I very quickly lost many devotions because I was overwhelmed and hadn’t established any habits.
The key to this is making small incremental steps that establish a habit little by little, by first making a foundation and then adding to it. Even God utilized a gradual progression when creating the world! He built upon what he had made previously and didn’t make the whole Earth and everything in it all at once. There’s something special there to see how the God of the Universe works and maybe we should emulate that in our own lives.
To leave this article with something you can take and use for yourself, here is a step-by-step method to growing in your spiritual walk. The key is to work in one-week increments. If you are planning on finding a devotion that will last a lifetime, then working at it week by week shouldn’t be a problem.
1. Pick ONE devotion you would like to incorporate into your life.
There are a lot of different devotions you can have when it comes to your prayer life. Choose one that you could add to your daily routine and build upon it. Whether it’s praying the rosary, the Divine Office, daily readings, daily devotional, or blocked-out prayer time. Just find something and pick one to work on.
2. Find a time in your day when you can block out 5-10 minutes.
Start small and create a window of 5 to 10 minutes that you can have totally to yourself without any distractions. Whether that’s a small amount of time in your bedroom while driving to work, in your office, in your living room, or on a walk. Make a small commitment to that little time and keep it special. Mark it on your calendar if you have to. In order to build, you need to first have a strong foundation, and it starts with a committed time that’s set apart.
3. Do the same devotion for one week before changing anything.
Get a full 7 days under your belt of this new devotion before you change anything. You want to get the habit established a little before making any adjustments. Right now you want to first get the time set aside as a habit, and then you can alter the devotion or grow it after.
4. Confirm this is the devotion you want to pursue.
Now that you’ve established the time you commit to a devotion, make sure it’s the devotion you want to do. If you were praying a decade of the rosary now but think you’d like the liturgy of the hours more, then make the switch. It’s important though to not lose that time you’ve set apart for devotion. So keep the same time if it still works.
5. Grow the devotion by 10 minutes.
If you’re at the point where you’ve been doing your daily devotion and you feel you can do more. Add 10 more minutes and do that for an entire week. So now you can do the same devotion for 15-20 minutes every day. So now instead of doing one decade of the rosary, you can do 2 or 3. Or if you’ve been doing the morning prayer of Liturgy of the Hours, now you can dip into the First Readings.
6. Journal your experience frequently.
While you’re building this new devotion, try journaling your thoughts either every day or once a week. This will help in getting a better understanding of your time spent with God and refining your ability to hear His voice. By writing on a regular basis, you are also establishing your devotion even further.
7. Expand upon your devotion as you wish.
Now that you’ve fully established a devotion in your prayer life, you can explore more areas to further enrich your spiritual practice. Research a saint that also maintained your devotion and find out what it did for them and what they have to say about it. Find more ways to make that devoted time an even higher quality. You could go to a park once a week to do the devotion in nature, or find a way to incorporate Catholic music. Anyway, that would make your time that much more special would be a plus.
I hope these simple steps help in your journey to a deeper prayer devotion. I will be working right alongside you in my quest to hone my devotion as well. Comment below any helpful suggestions you have when it comes to devotions and prayer life. Also, leave a comment about what you’re doing to encourage one another and build a community.
God Bless!