Place your mind before the mirror of eternity,
place your soul in the brightness of His glory,
place your heart in the image of the divine essence
and transform yourself by contemplation
utterly into the image of His divinity,
that you too may feel what His friends feel as they taste
the hidden sweetness that God himself has set aside
from the beginning for those who love Him.

Casting aside all things in this false and troubled world
that ensnare those who love them blindly,
give all your love to Him who gave Himself in all
for you to love:

Whose beauty the sun and moon admire, and whose gifts
are abundant and precious and grand without end.

~Saint Clare of Assisi

Delete resentment in your heart. The person you’re MAD at might have moved on, and they’re not even thinking about you anymore. So, your anger isn’t hurting them, it’s hurting YOU. ~Kemmy Nola

Part 1 of 3: Letting Go of Your Thoughts

1. Accept that you’re thinking too much. Just like eating, thinking is something we need to do to survive, so it is sometimes hard to judge when you are doing too much of it. However, there are several red flags that you are doing too much thinking for your own good. Here are a few of them:

• Are you consumed by the same thought over and over again? Are you not making progress by thinking about this particular thing? If so, this may be a sign that you should move on.
• Have you analyzed the same situation from a million angles? If you’ve found too many ways to look at something before you decide how to act, you may be being counterproductive.
• Have you enlisted the help of your twenty closest friends in thinking about a particular thing? If so, then it’s time to realize that you can only ask for so many opinions about the same idea before you drive yourself insane.
• Are people constantly telling you to stop over-thinking things? Do people tease you for brooding, being a philosopher, or staring out of rainy windows all the time? If so, they may have a point.

2. Meditate. If you feel like you don’t know how to stop thinking, you need to learn what it’s like to “let go” of your thoughts, so that it’s something you can do deliberately.[1] Imagine that thinking is like breathing; you do it all the time, without even realizing it. But if you need to, you can hold your breath. Meditating will help you learn how to release your thoughts.

• Just spending 15-20 minutes meditating every morning can make a dramatic impact on your ability to stay in the present and let go of all of your nagging thoughts.
• You can also meditate at night to help yourself wind down.

Continue reading →

Hating yourself won’t make you a better person
Here’s the thing: We all have aspects of ourselves that we know could use a little improvement. The problem is that far too often, we respond to these imperfections with disdain, self-loathing, and harsh criticism. Think about your life like a house you own; things will sometimes break or fall into disrepair. When something isn’t perfect about a house, you don’t say, “Well, time to go berate the f*** out of those loose shingles until they fix themselves!” You say, “Time to give this awkward palace some TLC.” Nothing improves when it’s fed with anger and hatred. That’s true of humans more than anything. Pouring loving energy over yourself as often as possible won’t result in you settling for being mediocre – it will give you the strength and encouragement to fix yourself up.

You will literally never be perfect
Only the worst kind of people are ever “done” evolving. If you ever look at yourself and go, “Yup, this is perfect. I’m all done growing. There is no possible way to improve on all of this”, you’re either delusional or you’re a lame ass quitter who has decided that self-growth has just become too much work. The mere fact that you can still identify parts of yourself that could be better means you are doing awesome. You aren’t afraid to face yourself honestly, you’re brave enough to believe you can be more than you are right now, and you’re motivated enough to try. You see yourself. You’re not lying to yourself. And you know that Future You is a glowing badass. Those are qualities you already have, and that sure as shit is worth loving.

You’ve been lied to about how good you already are
You know all those books and movies where people feel awkward and stupid and basically every shade of incorrect until someone swoops in and makes them feel lovable for the first time and suddenly they’re like a flower opening to the sun? They become a better friend! They get a great job! They can wear heels without tripping! They are an all-around better human being all because someone else entered their lives and told them they were worth a damn. Now imagine if we were told by books and movies that we had the power to do that for ourselves. We wouldn’t have to wait for shit to realize that we already have everything we need to be awesome at life. We would tell ourselves how special and lovely and breathtakingly unique we are. We would rescue ourselves. Let’s move past being pissed that Hollywood has been selling us a bullshit notion that we have to sit on the sidelines of our own lives until someone else comes along to validate us as worthwhile humans; let’s just start doing it for ourselves.

It keeps your standards as high as they should be
The more you love yourself, the easier it will be to recognize when someone isn’t loving you enough. If you treat yourself like shit, it will feel normal when someone else does it. Continue reading →