“We don’t always know what makes us happy. We know, instead, what we think should. We are baffled and confused when our attempts at happiness fail…we are mute when it comes to naming accurately our own preferences, delights, gifts, talents. The voice of our original self is often muted, overwhelmed, even strangled, by the voices of other people’s expectations. The tongue of the original self is the language of the heart.” --Julia Cameron
The Softest Things
“The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world." -- Lao Tzu
Tell me about a time you experienced or witnessed this.
... [Continue Reading]A Risk I Took to Save Myself
In Wild, the author recounts her months-long hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, a journey that she took entirely alone after life as she'd known it had fallen apart.
"It was a world I'd never been to and yet had known was there all along…one I'd staggered to in sorrow and confusion and fear and hope. A world I thought would both make me into the woman I knew I could become and turn me back into the girl I'd once been." --Cheryl Strayed, Wild
Write about a time when you embarked upon something new and challenging, frightening, or even dangerous—as a way to find an answer, to rediscover something essential about yourself. Tell us about what you did—the adventure, the journey, the risks you took—what drove you there, and who you were when you ... [Continue Reading]
Holiday Memories
"Christmas is not an external event at all, but a piece of one's home that one carries in one's heart." --Freya Stark
