BRAVE ENOUGH by Cheryl Strayed

Oprah discussed this book on her Super Soul Sunday show and I just loved how she was raving about it. I picked it up and gave it a whirl and now I too know why she was praising it! The author of WILD wrote this book due to so many people plucking out certain quotes that resonated with them. It is a short read, but well worth it! Some of my favorite quotes are below:

Quotes, at their core, almost always shout YES!

Love many, trust few, and always paddle your own canoe.

Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light.

I think of quotes as mini-instruction manuals for the soul.

I believe in the power of words to help us reset our intentions, clarify our thoughts. 

BE BRAVE ENOUGH TO BREAK YOUR OWN HEART.

What if all those things I shouldn’t have done were what got me here?

Grief is tremendous, but love is bigger. You are grieving because you loved truly. The beauty in that is greater than the bitterness of death. Allowing this into your consciousness will not keep you from your suffering, but it will help you survive the next day.

You let time pass. That’s the cure. You survive the days. You float like a rabid ghost through the weeks. You cry and wallow and lament and scratch your way back up through the months. And then one day you find yourself alone on a bench in the sun and you close your eyes and lean your head back and you realize you’re okay. 

The body knows. When your heart sinks. When you feel sick to your gut. When something blossoms in your chest. When your brain gloriously pops. That’s your body telling you the One True Thing. Listen to it. 

Nobody will protect you from your suffering. You can’t cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even therapy is away. It’s just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it. You have to live through it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal. Therapists and friends can help you along the way, but the healing- the genuine healing, the actual real-deal, down-on-your-knees-in-the-mud change- is entirely and absolutely up to you. 

Our most meaningful relationships are often those that continued beyond the juncture at which they came closest to ending. 

Work hard. Do good. Be incredible.

You have to find a way to inhabit your body while enacting your deepest desires. You have to be brave enough to build the intimacy you deserve. 

When used right, ultimatums offer a respectful and loving way through an impasse that would sooner or later have destroyed a relationship on its own anyway. They require us to ask for something we need from someone else, yes, but them demand the most from us. They require us to acknowledge that the worst-case scenario- the end of a cherished relationship- is better than the alternative- a lifetime of living with sorrow and humiliation and rage. They demand that we ask of ourselves: What do I want? What do I deserve? What will I sacrifice to get it? And then they require that we do it. In fear and in pain and in faith, to swim there. 

You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding. 

One ends a romantic relationship while remaining a compassionate friend by being kind above all else. By explaining one’s decision to leave the relationship with love and respect and emotional transparency. By being honest without being brutal. By expressing gratitude for what was given. By taking responsibility for mistakes and attempting to make amends. By acknowledging that one’s decision has caused another human being to suffer. By suffering because of that. By having the guts to stand by one’s partner even while one is leaving. By talking it all the way through and by listening. By honoring what once was. By bearing witness to the undoing and salvaging what one can. By being a friend, even if an actual friendship is impossible. By having good manners. By considering how one might feel if the tables were turned. By going out of one’s way to minimize hurt and humiliation. By trusting that the most compassionate thing of all is to release those we don’t love hard enough or true enough or big enough or right. By believing we are all worthy of hard, true, big, right love. By remembering while letting go. 

To order a copy click below: 

Yum