You came here to grow not to acquire or accumulate, not to be perceived perfectly or attain every charm in the world.
You came here to deepen, to let go. To tie loose ends, to give closure.
To love; to love.
Please remember this when it feels as though you want to grip tightly to the pieces of your life that fit seamlessly within the structure of success, of safety, of making it.
You are a wild soul in a temporary form.
You are here to explore and have a story all your own.
Don’t deny yourself that. Don’t deny yourself an adventure.
EK #02
You chase your happiness because you fear it is fleeting,
But you grip onto your pain with the belief that it will somehow become an everlasting part of your life.
The root of this is the idea that your stasis is discomfort, when it is your inner peace that you always come home to, that you always return to, and that always reemerges no matter how far you wander.
The fears you wrap around the feeling states that lead you to resist them come from a fundamental misunderstanding of who and how you are. Let it hurt and let it pass.
Let it teach you something on the way out. And when you do wake up once again in peace, remember that storm clouds pass through an evergreen sky, even when the light is gone for a while. It always clears.
It always comes back.
You always return.
EK #03
I hope you press up on the boundaries of what you thought was possible, and I hope you go beyond them.
I hope you let fear lead you to the most treasured, sacred, and important parts of your journey.
I hope you connect, first and foremost to yourself.
Moreso, I hope you do not let this life pass you as a series of certainties, as a checklist you’re simply working through.
I hope you truly live.
I hope you let the living surprise you.
And I hope you come out on the other end better than you ever thought you could be.
EK #04
There are elements of who you will be one day that will form as a result of your experiences right now.
You get to decide which way they shape you, whether they make way for a deepening within you, or scar you around the edges leaving you barely able to reach beyond your own hiding space.
You get to decide what you do with the hurt, what you do with the hope, what you do with everything that finds you and leaves.
But you get to decide who you’re going to be.
EK #05
Of all the vast improbabilities that had to align for you to be here in this exact form, at this exact moment, in this exact place, meeting and feeling something deeply with only a few souls out of the billions you could have come across well, I hope it makes you believe in something.
Even if you can’t name what that something is, I hope it makes you realize how rare and irreplicable this moment is.
I hope it makes you trust that maybe there’s more to the gravitational pull that keeps all the planets in orbit maybe there’s a pull within that brings you directly to where you are meant to be.
EK #06
Traces of the future line the history of your life.
You will come to see that the years will invariably lead to a zenith moment when all of the loose ends find one another in the most mysterious and serendipitous of ways.
Trust that there is a calling upon your life, and no experience, no matter how painful or confusing, will be wasted in the end.
EK #07
Some of the very best parts of your life begin to flow right after you give up.
After you give up on trying to be someone you’re not, placing other people’s opinions higher than your own.
After you stop trying to live out the plan that you have outgrown you stop trying to make the wrong pieces fit.
Sometimes, holding on isn’t about muscling through, but knowing what you are meant to release along the way.
EK #08
With how much detail can you describe the antennae of a flower, the sunset, or the best night of your life?
With how much understanding can you explain how you overcame your greatest challenges?
How deeply do you know yourself?
Your life enriches as you expand your ability to describe and understand the processes and intricacies of what it is to be alive.
EK #09
How do you figure out what you want?
You imagine a life that would be too good to be true, and then you take note of the elements, the themes.
Are you surrounded by others, are you quiet?
Are you hopeful, healing, or resting?
And are you adventuring, are you in your wild?
Are you creating, are you more unique?
The picture does not have to come fully into fruition for you to understand that its pieces are directing you to the most honest aspects of yourself.
Make a map of that life and live it now.
Live it here
EK #10
The parts of your journey where you felt like you were failing and falling behind,
The moments when it seemed like nothing was working out the way it should,
And the times during which you were all but forced to prioritize rest,
To begin a process of self-reflection, and to have no choice but to change weren’t your setbacks,
They were your breakthroughs in disguise.
EK #11
The universe is constantly asking if you are ready to stop engaging with your old habits and enter into a parallel life, one you begin to build in the gaps between what happens and how you respond.
The next time you are faced with the same challenge, you are being called to ask:
How can I respond differently this time?
EK #12
You are growing, even when it feels like you are doing nothing but being still.
You are growing, even when it feels like you are doing the opposite of moving forward when it feels like all you can think about is what you regret, what you wish you had done differently, and the way you think it all should have unfolded.
Within disappointment is great knowledge, if you dare to look at your life beyond the perspective of your ego, the part of you that is so intent on seeking evidence to affirm its perceived inadequacy.
EK #13
Maybe your constant wanting of more is not evidence that you are insatiable with your desire for the material aspects of this world, but because your true needs are not being met.
Because there are ways in which your life is not functioning the way you want and need it to be, because there are ways in which you’re missing connection.
The fabric of your days is fraying and you do not know how to sew it back together.
Maybe your constant wanting is a symptom of what’s not yet been fully seen.
The truth is that you can never have enough of what you do not need.
You can never have enough of what does not fill the hole inside.
EK #14
Your existence only has to feel meaningful to you.
It is beautiful in the smallest ways.
Sometimes, the weight of your dissatisfaction comes from the crashing down of all the perspectives you’ve heard and held within, what you’ve tried to measure up to as if one sunrise could compete with the next, one flower could blossom more perfectly than the next, one field of grass could flow with the wind in a more perfect pattern.
If you can manage to make one perfect moment, one fleeting second, within this day you have achieved more than you can imagine.
You have awakened your soul.
EK #15
Your life is a collaboration with the gods, with the ions that made you, with the winding histories that led to this precise millisecond in time, and you think you’re not here for a reason?
The vast improbability that you could come to be in your precise form, with all of your interests and gifts intersecting over this singular space where you can nurture the garden of humanity’s soul in some small way that’s only yours, and you think you’re not here for a reason?
Go outside and gaze up at the galaxy around you.
This is an irreplaceable moment in time.
EK #16
You have no idea how not-alone you are.
You have no idea how many other people walk through this world with similar thoughts, and fears.
How many people have felt the sinking, crashing weight of heartbreak, the hope of the future, wondering if they did it all wrong?
The optics can be deceiving. It is easy to feel alone.
