finding yourself // emily mcdowell
“Finding yourself” is not really how it works.
You aren’t a ten-dollar bill in last winter’s coat pocket.
You are also not lost.
Your true self is right here, buried under cultural conditioning, other people’s opinions and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are.
'Finding yourself' is actually returning to yourself.
An unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you.
- Emily McDowell
step into the fire // mooji
Step into the fire of self-discovery. This fire will not burn you, it will only burn what you are not.
- Sri Mooji
wasting apples // louise erdrich
Life will break you.
Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning.
You have to love. You have to feel.
It is the reason you are here on earth.
You have to risk your heart.
You are here to be swallowed up.
And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness.
Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.
- Louise Erdrich
nature’s feather bed // terence mckenna
Nature loves courage.
You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles.
Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up.
This is the trick.
This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood.
This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall.
This is how magic is done.
By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed.
- Terence McKenna
the light does not choose // brianna wiest
The light does not choose who to shine upon
it beams, it radiates, it spreads to every open space
all of the grass on the entire earth
does not have to compete
for the rays of sun that nourish it
there is enough for every blade
all the billions of them
and that is the lesson
- Brianna Wiest
love after love // derek walcott
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here.
Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread.
Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit.
Feast on your life.
- Derek Walcott
homecoming // brianna wiest
You don’t fall in love with yourself by convincing yourself you are nothing but goodness.
You don’t heal the holes in your heart by telling yourself they don’t exist.
You don’t just begin believing in your own perfection one day.
You fall in love with yourself when you fall in love with the smallest details of your life.
You fall in love with yourself when you start to take care of yourself.
You fall in love with yourself when you stop thinking of self-love as an infatuation, but a homecoming.
You fall in love with yourself when the child inside looks at the adult you are now and sees the ease of their own approval.
- Brianna Wiest
falling into place // brianna wiest
Almost when you least expect it, things fall into place.
You realize that what left was making space for what was about to arrive.
The quiet let you hear the guidance. The unhappiness forced you to make a move. The unsettledness made you keep seeking. The end ushered in a new beginning. The doors that closed turned you toward the ones that were opening.
The lessons were always leading you.
Every time you got it wrong, you came one step closer to having it right.
You begin to realize that the person you are is the aperture through which you experience everything, and the growth was always about refining that person to better respond to what is heavy, and appreciate what is light."
- Brianna Wiest
your new life is going to cost you // brianna weist
Your new life is going to cost you your old one.
It's going to cost you your comfort zone and your sense of direction.
It's going to cost you relationships and friends.
It's going to cost you being liked and understood.
It doesn't matter.
The people who are meant for you are going to meet you on the other side.
You're going to build a new comfort zone around the things that actually move you forward.
Instead of being liked, you're going to be loved.
Instead of being understood, you're going to be seen.
All you're going to lose is what was built for a person you no longer are.
Let it go.
- Brianna Wiest
allow // danna faulds
There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt,
containing a tornado. Dam a
stream and it will create a new
channel.
Resist, and the tide
will sweep you off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry
you to higher ground.
The only safety lies in letting it all in –
the wild and the weak; fear,
fantasies, failures and success.
When loss rips off the doors of
the heart, or sadness veils your
vision with despair, practice
becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your
known way of being, the whole
world is revealed to your new eyes.
- Danna Faulds
the goal of yoga (no, it’s not the handstand) // rachel brathern
The yoga pose is not the goal. Becoming flexible is not the goal. Standing on your hands is not the goal.
The goal is to create space where you were once stuck.
To unveil the layers of protection you’ve built around your heart.
To appreciate your body and become aware of the mind and the noise it creates.
To make peace with who you are.
The goal is to love, well…you.
Come to your yoga mat to feel; not to accomplish.
Shift your focus and your heart will grow.
- Rachel Brathern
