The point is to let some parts of yourself disintegrate within the fire of your transformation.
You are meant to grow as new evidence and experience are presented to you, as you adapt to new ideas, solve new problems, gain new skills, hear new perspectives, and see more of the world as it is.
You are not meant to remain one static character within your life.
When someone says to you, that you’ve changed, you should reply, how have you not?
EK #02
Maybe this phase of your journey is supposed to be about preparation.
Maybe it’s about developing the courage to take those first steps.
And maybe it’s about finding the stamina to keep going even when you’re challenged, even when you become discouraged, even on the days you feel exhausted and it seems as though you’ll never arrive.
Maybe this part of your journey is about observing and studying the world you want to be a part of, the experiences you want to have, and the person you want to be.
Maybe you aren’t supposed to be there yet. Maybe there are still dreams inside of you that have not yet come to light.
@EK #03
Nobody is brave at the beginning.
Bravery is dug out of the deepest part of us, often by necessity.
It is when you allow your love for something to grow a little larger than your fear about it.
It is when you make the voice of possibility a little louder than the one of doubt.
Or it is when you feel that familiar sense of hesitation come over you and choose to act anyway,
When you decide to keep moving in the right direction even if you have to do it one step at a time.
It is that moment of clarity when you realize that nobody not one of us gets to the end of this life with our hearts entirely unscarred because that would mean they were also untouched.
You become brave when you realize that wholeness allows for the nuances of who you are.
You become brave when you realize that you do not have to always feel calm and certain, but be able to find the strength to keep showing up regardless.
EK #04
There is nothing scarier than the idea of leaving what is good for the hope of what may be exceptional.
What you do not realize, at that moment, is that you have already decided.
The path forward is now about becoming comfortable with that choice, through all the mental gymnastics, justifications, explanations, and processing that it may bring.
In the end, you already know.
You are not finding your answers.
You are finding your courage.
EK #05
If you feel like you need to be where you are for a little while longer, you are probably right.
If you feel like there’s more to release, there probably is.
Also, if you think you’re on the precipice of the breakthrough, you probably are.
Just because you can’t see the end yet, or understand how it will all come together, does not mean that you aren’t still exactly where you are meant to be.
*EK #06
Sometimes, the walls that you once constructed as a safeguard become the same thing that prevents your love from pouring into your own life.
The thing that prevents your heart from knowing the inside of someone else’s.
What once kept you safe begins to hold you back the series of self-defeating ideas that serve little purpose other than to dissuade you from connection, than to remind you not to reach out from behind your fortress, lest you get burned.
Lest you get hurt.
Sometimes, the only way to break down those walls is piece by piece.
You have to let yourself be seen in the smallest ways.
Then you have to keep going and keep growing.
You don’t have to wake up tomorrow and be instantly better.
You just have to practice thawing out what’s gone cold and stiff within you.
Do not allow your comfort zone to become your cage.
EK #07
If another person’s love does not make you feel safe enough to open up,
If it does not make you see yourself kindlier,
And if it does not make you want to live more in the ways you’d always intended, then it is not for you.
Not because you are not deserving, but because you are completely deserving of someone who makes you feel happiness not only when you are with them, but also when you are not.
EK #08
If you understand that life is about the little things, you will never find yourself wanting more than what’s in front of you.
You will understand that true joy is using what you have, being where you are, and loving the souls who have chosen to walk with you.
You will begin to understand that the desire for grandiosity is a projection of the lack of true depth you feel within.
$EK #09
No, you will not be able to avoid hurting, but you will get better at it with time.
You will learn to hear someone’s disapproval and not immediately internalize it but simply witness it as their experience: one that does not have to touch you, nor sway or force you to react.
You will feel your nervous system activate and your heart pound and you will not self-destruct as though that may act as a Band-Aid, as though it could soothe you in some masochistic way.
Meanwhile, you will sense when you are tired and burnt out, and you will decide to love yourself enough to resist the urge to keep engaging and simply rest.
You will learn about yourself enough to know when you need quiet when you need connection, and when you need nurturing in the most basic ways, and you will learn how to give that to yourself.
You will be rejected, and it will not end you;
It will not initiate your internal collapse.
No, you will not be able to avoid hurting altogether, but you will become better able to weather it in time.
EK #10
Some days the point is simply to be in the garden, to walk without a destination in mind.
To write and never find the end of the sentence.
To love without knowing entirely where that love will lead.
And to listen and not speak.
To find salvation in the quiet moments that nobody else will see.
Maybe you are not meant to find an answer every hour,
But to finally realize that not everything is an open-ended question some things are meant to just be.
EK #11
It is heavy because you are not supposed to carry it this far, for this long.
It is heavy because it was never really yours in the first place.
And it is heavy because humans are not meant to keep holding within them relics of the most painful parts of the past.
It’s heavy because it’s carrying an old world into a new one.
It’s heavy because it’s asking you to put it down.
Meanwhile, it’s heavy because some part of you can sense who you would become without it.
It’s heavy because you’ve lightened in some way,
And so, the fragmented parts of you that are too dense to move with you must finally be put to rest.
@EK #12
Happiness is something that is gently built.
It is what you make ritual within your life, what you allow yourself to get used to.
You think of happiness as a constant forward motion, a kind of growth that looks like a never-ending accumulation when it is in truth consistent effort in the same direction.
It is the way you strengthen bonds, uncover beauty, and grow to become most comfortable with yourself.
It is how you learn to trace the lines of your innermost desires outward into the world, to find within them the pockets where you most belong.
It is to live in a way that makes you feel grateful you are here, that affirms how connected you are to something greater, that makes you feel as though you’re working toward something that one day will add up to be more meaningful than all its parts.
EK #13
A big part of finding yourself is discovering the pieces of yourself you first see in other people.
The other human beings who embody something so familiar but seemingly out of reach, who can evoke within you the heaviness of envy or the lightness of inspiration both equally attempting to guide you to self-realization.
Please, whatever you do, never forget that what you observe in others is also dormant in you.
You are not coming into a knowledge of a space in which you lack but a space in which you are most primed to expand and grow.
The tension is not the result of another person occupying what could be yours to stand in, but the revelation of how much you are suppressing that they allow to flow out of themselves, how much they are willing to embrace.
Your ego will want to make people like this your enemies.
Your soul knows that they are your teachers in disguise.
EK #14
It is easy to see all that is wrong within the world, but harder to dive inward into the place from which all the world is born.
It is easy to know that something must be amended, but harder to amend within our perception first.
Maybe, it is easy to know where there is a lack of love, but harder to reach down within ourselves and let it come from us first.
It is easy to realize what must change, but harder to be the one that changes it.
*EK #15
Enough is not a point you reach but a feeling in your heart.
A contentment, a knowing that you are where you’re supposed to be.
Nobody else can give that to you.
Nobody else can hand you self-acceptance or inner belonging.
Sometimes, our focus on other people’s perceptions of us is a way to supplant our sense that something isn’t quite right
As if by convincing those around us that we are on our true path, we might somehow be a little closer than we were before.
We cannot trick our hearts with our minds.
We cannot list off the facts that quantify and outline our enoughness.
But we can only come to the quiet, little place inside us and honour that.
We can only exit the labyrinth of our pain when we realize that self-love is not an outward measure but an inward nurturing.
EK #16
Listen to the parts of you that are trying to be heard.
The parts of you that speak softly, that gently show you where you are not open, where you are still stuck, where you are asking to grow, and who you are asking to love.
Sometimes, our dominant stream of thinking is not the clearest representation of our truest inner selves.
Our bodies speak in subtle ways, and as we learn to pay attention to not only what we hear, but also what we sense, we awaken an entirely new level of living, an entirely new way of being.
EK #17
Maturity is realizing that you are not supposed to be for everyone.
You are not the center of everyone’s universe.
At the same time, you are the creator of your own.
You get to decide who gets to be a part of your story, and how much.
You get to play with the forces of inspiration that come through you, or you get to let them pass you by.
Also, you get to decide what is for you, rather than just trying to fit yourself into the sidelines of a life centered on someone else.
@EK #18
Life knows things you don’t.
It’s heard conversations you haven’t.
It’s realizing the truth about some people you have not yet completely come to know.
Trust life when it seems like the very things you want most suddenly no longer want you back.
You have to believe that life is protecting your heart from any further damage.
It is ensuring you will not waste another hour of your precious time on what’s not in your best interest.
Life is not turning its back on you, so you must learn to not turn your back on it.
