“how you love yourself is how you teach others to love you” - Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey

“One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others. There was a time when I felt lousy about my over-forty body, saw myself as too fat, too this, or too that. Yet I fantasized about finding a lover who would give me the gift of being loved as I am. It is silly, isn't it, that I would dream of someone else offering to me the acceptance and affirmation I was withholding from myself. This was a moment when the maxim "You can never love anybody if you are unable to love yourself" made clear sense. And I add, "Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself.” - Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“for once, you believed in yourself. you believed you were beautiful and so did the rest of the world.” - Sarah Dessen, Keeping the Moon

“If you hurry about trying to change yourself, before first fully understanding yourself, it is like chasing out flies, without first closing the window. The problem is not the flies, your problem is the window.” David Scott

In the end all we need is hope and strength. Hope that it will get better and strength to hold on until it does.

“We are at our most powerful the moment we no longer need to be powerful.”

Growing can only occur when we are outside of our comfort zone.

“You can look out onto the water or stare deep into the vast stars above. You can beg the sparkling lanterns of light to cure you of yourself or instead you can look inward, within your soul; forgive yourself, accept yourself and value yourself. We are all a kaleidoscope of mistakes, failures and wrong turns, but like a kaleidoscope, made of tiny pieces of broken glass, when we look through them we can see beauty and wonder in their brokenness.”

Some people will not love you regardless of what you do. Other people will love you regardless of what you do.

Sometimes good things fall apart, so better things can fall in their place.

If you don’t have time for what matters, stop making time for what does not.

Pain is passed down in families, until finally someone is ready to feel it and deal with it.

“The way you think about yourself determines your reality. You are not being hurt by the way people think about you. Many of those people are a reflection of how you think about yourself.” - Shannon L. Alder

“Don't let others box you into their idea of what they think you should be. A confined identity is a miserable way to exist. Be you and live free. Trust that in living true to yourself, you will attract people that support and love you, just as you are.” - Jaeda DeWalt

“If you are always trying to be normal, you will never realize just how amazing you are.” Maya Angelou

“Keep going and do not worry about your speed. You are always making progress even if it does not seem like it. Forward is forward, no matter how slow.”

“Our lives are a lot like living sky: there are rain clouds, rainbows and sunrays that run and overtake one another, mingle together and dance with each other on the journey of our life.” – David Scott

“Some days I amaze myself, other days I look for my phone while holding it.”

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in.” - Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)

“Happiness is not dependent on circumstances being exactly as we want them to be, or on ourselves being exactly as we’d like to be. Rather, happiness stems from loving ourselves and our lives exactly as they are, knowing that joy and pain, strength and weakness, glory and failure are all essential to the full human experience.” - Kristin Neff

“Staying positive does not mean everything will turn out okay. Rather, it means you will be okay no matter how things turn out.” —Unknown

“A friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face.”
—Maya Angelou

“No storm, not even the one in your life, right now can last forever. The storm is just passing over.” - Iyanla Vanzant

“Those who disrespect you with their mouth don't deserve your ear.” - Curtis Tyrone Jones

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." - Reinhold Niebuhr

“No tree tries to become a certain kind of tree. No flower tries to become a certain kind of flower. The tree and the flower open up to the sun and soak up water. Thus, they grow into themselves. No judgment. No expectations. No commentary. Your task is the same. If you can stop trying so hard to become who you think you should be, and instead commit to understanding and nourishing yourself, you will bloom into whatever kind of person you are.” - Vironika Tugaleva, The Art of Talking to Yourself

“You Can’t Skip Chapters That’s Not How Life Works. You Have to Read Every Line Meet Every Character. You Won’t Enjoy All of It. Hell, Some Chapters Will Make You Cry for Weeks. You Will Read Things You Don’t Want to Read, You Will Have Moments When You Don’t Want the Pages to End. But You Have to Keep Going. Stories Keep the World Revolving. Live Yours, Don’t Miss Out.” -Courtney Peppernell