Dive Deep into Creativity: Discover, Share, Inspire
The obliterated place is equal parts destruction and creation. The obliterated place is pitch black and bright light. It is water and parched earth. It is mud and it is manna. The real work of deep grief is making a home there.
Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
What if I forgave myself? I thought. What if I forgave myself even though I'd done something I shouldn't have? What if I was a liar and a cheat and there was no excuse for what I'd done other than because it was what I wanted and needed to do? What if I was sorry, but if I could go back in time I wouldn't do anything differently than I had done? What if I'd actually wanted to fuck every one of those men? What if heroin taught me something? What if yes was the right answer instead of no? What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn't have done was what also had got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?
Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
You have to say I am forgiven again and again until it becomes the story you believe about yourself.
Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
The narratives we create in order to justify our actions and choices become in so many ways who we are. They are the things we say back to ourselves to explain our complicated lives. Perhaps the reason you've not yet been able to forgive yourself is that you're still invested in your self-loathing. Perhaps not forgiving yourself is the flip side of your stealing-this-now cycle. Would you be a better or worse person if you forgave yourself for the bad things you did? If you perpetually condemn yourself for being a liar and a thief, does that make you good?
Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
Forgiveness doesn't sit there like a pretty boy in a bar. Forgiveness is the old fat guy you have to haul up a hill.
Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
Forgiveness bellows from the bottom of the canoe. There are doubts, dangers, unfathomable travesties. There are stories you'll learn if you're strong enough to travel there. One of them might cure you.
Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar