Had I wanted so desperately to be special, to have a purpose, to recover from the shame of not being able to keep pace with the corporate world that I had somehow fabricated the entire thing? And how would I ever be able to tell for sure? If we are all just hallucinating this reality around us, how could we ever really know what is true and real

I also struggle to answer this question as a spiritual practitioner — as someone others turn to for answers in their most devastating times. In these moments, the New Age aphorisms of “everything happens for a reason” and “the Universe has your back” just don’t cut it. Even if they are true (and who’s to say if they really are, or if we’ve made

meet people in their rock-bottom pain.

I like to think that because I’m a person who has spent years dealing with my own shadows, I’m someone who becomes a safe space for others to express theirs. I have been to excruciating depths in my life, and as such, I am able to

person can only meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves.”

anything else he’d like to share. “You can love anyone if you give them a fair chance. Be good to the people who chose you. Don’t make it harder than it needs to be. You can love anything back to life. Don’t let the fires go out. Light it up again if it’s gone cold. That’s all I wanted to say.”

“There’s a magical thing that happens when you slow down: Time doesn’t just slow, it stops. So be the master of time. Make it work for you. Stop and it will stop with you. The longer you stay, the slower it goes. The faster you race, the more it races on by. Whatever you want in life you can have, but you’ve gotta be willing to stop.

and your world is your art, your canvas. That’s where the gold is.

“So use them,” he went on. “Use your wounds. You don’t have to go through your life feeling so raw you can’t function, but while you’re standing at the abyss, while you’re staring into the abyss of these raw, gaping, open wounds, use them. That’s what they’re for. They color your world,