befriend your ingredients the spicy, the sweet, the pain, the heartache, the gifts, the shame, and the shine

so it is crucial that we, as narrators, frame our experiences with thoughts that heal, nurture, and motivate us.

When we understand how to feel grateful for what we have, we are free from the uneasy state of constantly wanting.

Share yourself with others, but don’t forget to give the best of who you are to yourself as well. You are with yourself for as long as you live . . . so it is probably wise to get good at being a best friend to yourself.

“Don’t wait on anyone to tell you what you are worth. You have to be the first person who knows what you are worth and can say what you are worth.”

The first step in this is conquering our ego. A loving relationship is built on compromise and working with our partner to continuously evolve into our best selves. This is not possible without hard truths, tough conversations, personal growth, and behavioral shifts. The ego does not like any of this. The ego wants us to believe that we are always

best way. Our spirit, on the other hand, knows that the people we love are in our life to challenge us to rise to new levels of consideration and care in all that we do. We cannot truly choose to invest in love while our ego is present, for real love runs on selflessness, and the ego runs on selfishness.

To be fearless is to be afraid of something but to do it anyway. Be fearless. Take the first step.

We become the stories we tell ourselves,