When your own approval means more than the approval of others, that is self-love.
When you have any sort of intense emotional reaction, you have a choice: look for proof that you should feel it even deeper or look for the thought process that is triggering the emotion. One takes you on a downwards spiral, while the other upwards. One breeds toxic patterns, the other awareness. The choice is yours.
The closer you come to your authentic self, the simpler everything becomes. Listen to your intuition. It will tell you who you are.
You cannot become good enough for your own approval just like you can’t become good enough to have hair. You cannot earn your own self-acceptance just like you can’t earn your own ears. You can’t become what you are. Stop looking out there. Look in the mirror. You’re already everything you’ve ever wanted to be.
I’ve experienced the feeling of about a dozen different drugs simply from a good conversation. I think, more often than not, that’s why people get addicted. They want a high that’s available only if they overcome their fear of connecting to others.
Trust that, when you are not holding yourself together so tightly, you will not fall apart. Trust that it is more important to fulfill your authentic desires than listen to your fears. Trust that your intuition is leading you somewhere. Trust that the flow of life contains you, is bigger than you, and will take care of you – if you let it.
The greatest freedom in this world is a sense of self detached from appearances so that we may sacrifice today’s comforts for tomorrow’s opportunities.
The most effective and permanent way to silence fears is to face them.
Fly blindly, trust is full of magic. Let your wild voice guide the way.
A person who doesn’t understand flowers might tug on them to make them grow. A person who doesn’t speak the language of someplace might misread the locals’ sentiments and intentions. Yet you are already such a flower, and your inner locals – your emotions, your body, your thoughts – are already speaking to you. If you don’t learn the language of your experience, then how can you understand yourself? How can you help yourself?
The human being is so complicated in some ways, and yet so simple in others. Sometimes, we need complex medication regimens. Yet, sometimes, we just need a good cry.
There is a difference between judgment and feedback. Your critics use you as a mirror for their own hidden darkness. Your teachers hold up a mirror to yours.
To extend compassion to a so-called villain, to forgive those who have wronged you, and to find common ground with someone who has been awfully isolated are not acts typically met with fireworks and swelling violins. More often than not, they are pushed away. To love, really love, is to do them anyway.
Compassion does not have to be a face-to-face relationship. Forgiveness does not imply friendship. Understanding why someone has inflicted pain on us is how we set ourselves free of the past, not how we excuse someone’s behaviour so they can continue to abuse us.
The reason most relationships fail isn’t because we haven’t found the right person. It’s because we haven’t found ourselves and we’re hoping someone can fill that void for us. They can’t. No one can. Self-love is and always will be a prerequisite to every happy romance.
I believe that the most tragic war of our time is the one within – a war between what we knew as children and what we’ve learned as adults. A war between wisdom and intelligence. A war between the natural colour of our hair and the colour we chemically impose upon it. A war between the manicured hedges and the untouched wilderness. A war between reality and fairy tales. A war between what we could learn about the world and what we are systematically taught. A war that can end in peace.
You have never been flawed. You have never been broken. Rather, you have misunderstood yourself.
The more you’ve struggled, the more inspiring your story will be when you come out the other side. Do not give up. Today’s struggle brings tomorrow’s wisdom.
All around us is an uninterrupted monologue that breeds self-doubt.
Any piece of advice comes with some risk of creating dependence. What we can do is add trust to the mix so it can neutralize the addictive impulses.