Reminders

                                                        

1. The truth is- genuine connection is ease. It is peace. When you find

it you will know. You will feel seen. You will feel respected. At the end

of the day, the human beings that surround you in this life should not 

exhaust you, or hollow you out, or leave you feeling like you are hard to

love. You should not have to play games, or beg for someone to care for

you the way you have deeply shown up to care for them. Please, do not 

romanticize the things in this life that hurt. You cannot love someone

into loving you, or being ready, or meeting their potential; you cannot

close their hands around your heart if they are not willing to hold it

themselves. You have to let them go. You have to focus on the people in

your life who bring you back home to yourself. You have to focus on 

standing up for that and of connection here, because it exists. It exists.

Trust that it will find you.

2. It is often in your weakest moments that you have the opportunity to

be the strongest. However, this does not mean putting on a brave face

and pretending that the heaviness does not exist. No, instead this means

sitting with your feelings, and experiencing them as they are- letting

them wash over you like rain. This means choosing to confront the voids,

instead of filling them or numbing them or distracting yourself from the

fact that they exist. In an age of extreme stimulation, in an age where we 

can sweep our pain under the rug, and focus on everything outside of

ourselves that is readily available and seeking our attention, it takes a lot

of courage to face what hurts. To look it in the eyes, to give it a name, to

understand that you cannot outrun yourself forever. That is what makes it 

an act of strength. That is where the healing begins.

3. Stay open to this world. Stay open to this world because it is filled

with human beings, and experiences, and feelings that will deeply, and

beautifully, grow you and inspire you and remind you that there is one chance

encounter, one singular moment in time, to completely change your life-

to expand the way you see happiness, and hope; to crack your heart 

open, to introduce it to levels of feeling and caring that you never knew

existed. Yes it is risky to be vulnerable, to be unguarded in this life; but 

it is far riskier to stay closed to all of the possibility that exists within it,

to stay fortified and safe and tucked away from feeling. At the end of the

day, you are here to risk your heart. You are here to connect. Please 

don't ever forget that.