Words and quotes that kept me going in 2024.

 

In 2024, I gave the fight of my life. I started fighting for my recovery and healing without any strength and without knowing if I was doing the right thing. I was challenged and tested with so many obstacles, fears and setbacks. A lot of times I thought I wasn't going to make it through, or that I was never going to get better. Each time, I had to challenge those thoughts. "It's possible to get better, it's possible..." I would repeat this over and over. "It's possible, I can do it." My therapist would say, sometimes that recovery is possible. I believe the last time she said this was only a month or two ago. Something would click in me, whenever she said this affirmation: 'recovery is possible.' Unfamiliar words holding a truth, realizing that if she was saying it, she had a reason for it. 

I had to face, internally, all that was unresolved. When I realized how lost I was, I had to find myself. I worked a lot on the relationship with myself, and on finding my center. The work was intense, painful and exhausting. I had therapy, some material from therapy, some books and my own research/work. A book from Mark Nepo became like a bible, for 365 days. But there were some affirmations and quotes that I kept going back to, repeatedly, to say and to process each word. Internalize it. Believe it.

Give myself, my trauma and my mental health validation.

They were, and are, part of my journey, healing, and recovery. Of finding myself. Grounding myself. Gaining strength and spirituality. Creating the terrifying change I needed, and moving forward.

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"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can."

"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible."

"Overexplaining can be a trauma response to having your truth ignored or your emotions dismissed for the longest time. It's like you are preemptively trying to address any doubts or criticism that you believe are coming."

"Admitting powerlessness is a form of strength."

"Admitting powerlessness is a form of acceptance."

"Start close in,
don't take
the second step
or the third,

start with the first
thing
close in,
the step you don't want to take." 

"We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down."

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose faced is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

"Use logic instead of emotion to gain a more balanced perspective."        

"To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable."

"Healing begins when you surrender to the truth of human imperfection and start treating yourself with nothing less than respect and compassion."

"Don't try to dissolve or disappear; just show up as yourself, with an open mind and a ready heart, prepared to meet with curiosity whatever arises next."

"May my limitations be doorways to partnership and relationship rather than reasons to feel shame and isolation."

"The ripples you create are innumerable and unknowable, make sure they are good ones. That is legacy."

"The body remembers the trauma."

"I hope when you come home to yourself there are flowers lining the front porch that were left from all the women you were before."

"True friendship resists time, distance and silence."

"Sometimes the magic happens when you stop worrying about how things will turn out."

"Do a small task to establish order; this will help you feel more in control and prevent the downward spiral of negative thinking."

"Be patient when you are becoming someone you haven't been before."                

"When we feel safe, the world is no longer a threat but a place of opportunity and possibility."   

"This task was appointed to you, Frodo. If you do not find a way, no one will."

"I am what i am..."

"Forgive ourselves for what we did in survival mode and start to build the skills to thrive."

"Go to where feels warm inside."

"Open your heart, then do everything you can to keep it open."

"God, who is forever pouring out God's whole being from all eternity, wants you to flourish."

"I deserve to live and live well."

"Shame can't live in the light."

"You are neglecting yourself..."

"Resilience then becomes the work of coming through the adversity so that, at least on most days, we see our life as still worth living."     

"We grow spiritually through powerlessness & willingness to change."

"People who fail to do something right, by even their own definition of right, are those who often break through the enlightenment and compassion." "But we only know it by going through it and coming out on the other side."

"Seeking external validation is an endless cycle of searching for someone else to prove we are worthy + lovable."

"Sometimes, in the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper in the heart, giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair."

"One way to get unstuck and increase feelings of accomplishment or betterment is using your mind, emotions and body to work for you and not against you. To navigate this feeling so that you can implement strategies to create change."

"Strength is not gained from a path that is clear of obstacles..."

"Be patient towards all that is unsolved."

"Adapt. Surrender."

And a few of my own...

Do not give in to fear. Do not give in...

Comeback to you, comeback.

I trust my timing. I trust the journey. I trust the process. I trust the Universe's timing.

i am.

I didn't die when I did the scary thing that triggers me so much and sends me into survival mode and panic attacks. If I didn't die, I'll do it again tomorrow.

If others are able to feel and have the things that are 'normal,' other than feeling nothing but darkness, pain and loneliness, why can't I? If others have healed from horrendous things, why can't I?

If others can do great things, like becoming authors and creating change, why can't I?

Maybe these things I am feeling and that I have come to accept as being true and part of who I am, are wrong. If they weren't I wouldn't be in this dark hole, stuck, getting worse instead of better. Maybe if I do the opposite; think the opposite, even if it feels wrong and terrifying, I might start getting better.  

Even if it feels I am throwing myself off a cliff without wings.

And if I hadn't, I don't know where I would be today.

♥

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