“It is not always the traumatic experiences that teach us to doubt ourselves & feel dismissed. It's the people who suggest it was our fault. It's the environments telling us to move on. It's the messages that dismiss the difficulty of survival in a world that repeats these cycles.”

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”

“What I’m learning is that growth is ugly.

It’s not bubble baths and self-help books that teach you how to love yourself.

It’s fighting, kicking and screaming against the self-doubt that weighs you down.

It’s panicking at the possibility of failure while still moving forward anyway.

It’s slowly peeling out of your skin and feeling the tenderness of a touch without armour.

The process of growth is ugly, but it’s the product that makes it worthwhile.”

“So often we try to make other people feel better by minimizing their pain, by telling them that it will get better (which it will) or that there are worse things in the world (which there are). But that's not what I actually needed. What I needed was for someone to tell me that it hurt because it mattered.”

“The world will ask you who you are, and if you do not know, the world will tell you.”

“Never forget who you are, the rest of the world will not, wear it like armor andit can never be used to hurt you. - Tyrion Lannister”

“We can forget that prayer is not about doing something, but rather about being with Someone. Prayer is an encounter. Mother Teresa would tell her novices that when they entered the chapel, they should say to Jesus: “Here I am, Lord. Love me.” Prayer is not rattling off words, nor a simple psychological activity, nor punching the clock, nor magic, nor ritual words and postures. It is not a monologue where we speak at God, but a dialogue where we converse with Him who is closer to us than we are to ourselves. Prayer is about falling head-over-heels in love with the God who is head-over-heels in love with us.”

“To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be. The people they're too exhausted to be any longer. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into. We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out, to become speedily found when they are lost. But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be. It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honour what emerges along the way. Sometimes it will be an even more luminescent flame. Sometimes it will be a flicker that temporarily floods the room with a perfect and necessary darkness.”

“A relationship is meant to increase the quality of our lives, not rescue us from the uncertainty of our lives.”

“Spiritual awakening is not a special feeling, state, or experience. It is not a goal or destination, somewhere to reach in the future. As the Buddha was trying to tell us (though few actually listened), it is not a superhuman achievement or attainment. You don’t have to travel to India to find it. It is not a special state of perfection reserved for the lucky or the privileged few. It is not an exclusive club. It is not an out-of-body experience, and it does not involve living in a cave, shutting off all your beautiful senses, detaching yourself from the realities of this modern world. It cannot be transmitted to you by a fancy bearded (or non-bearded) guru, nor can it be taken away or lost. You do not have to become anyone’s disciple or follower, or give away all your possessions. You do not have to join a cult. You do not have to follow anyone.

Rather, is a constant and ancient invitation – throughout every moment of your life – to trust and embrace yourself exactly as you are, in all your glorious imperfection. It is about being fully present and awake to each precious moment, coming out of the epic movie of past and future (“The Story of Me”) and showing up for life, knowing that even your feelings of non-acceptance are accepted here. It is about radically opening up to this extraordinary gift of existence, embracing both the pain and the joy of it, the bliss and the sorrow, the ecstasy and the overwhelm, the certainty and the doubt. Knowing that you are never separate from the Whole, never broken, never truly lost.”