On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

Each Sunday, I receive an inspiring message from poet Donna Ashworth’s Soul Mail newsletter. Here’s the latest:

For anyone who needs reminding today, there is no such thing as a straight road in this life…

You are never really ‘there’, never fully healed and perfect.

Rather I see it as a bendy, twisty route we walk. And it often feels as though we are going backwards. But I think we are actually looping. As all things do.

I like to imagine it as a figure of eight, an infinity shape.

We loop around the same lessons, the same heartaches, over and over, but each time we do we are a slightly different version of us and so we are not truly going backwards.

The loop always moves ahead. We are always moving ahead.

So if you feel like this today, if you feel you are in a place you thought you’d left behind; mentally, emotionally, or literally… be comforted by this image of infinity shape of life that we all tread.

You are exactly where you are supposed to be and the only thing you need to keep hold of as you loop around, is love. And perhaps faith and hope. All these things make for the very lightest of luggage (in fact I think they carry us).

And as you loop don’t forget to stop sometimes and appreciate the view from where you are. And congratulate yourself on how you travel so bravely. You never give up. And that is a thing so very worth celebrating.

I highly recommend subscribing to Donna Ashworth’s website.