Daring To Take Up Space

by Daniell Koepke

You can’t go back and change the decisions you’ve made, but you can choose what you do today.

Whatever you manage to do today is enough. No matter what, you’re enough.

You can’t make comparisons, because other people are not you.

The less pretty parts of who you are don’t discount the ones that make you irreplaceable. ———

trust, for once, that you have ended up where you needed to be. Trust that you are in the right place at the right time.

There are people you haven’t met yet who will love you and fight for you. Don’t settle for anything less.

you can’t heal by going back to the relationships and dynamics that broke you.

Apologies aren’t enough. “I’m sorry” implies a willingness to stop behaving in ways that hurt—but it loses its value when a person reopens the same wounds over and over again with no signs of change.

Your worth isn’t contingent upon other people’s acceptance of you.

Beating yourself up for not being further along does absolutely nothing to help get you closer to where you want to be. It makes you feel inadequate and ashamed, and it keeps you stuck. So stop fixating on how much farther you need to go and start acknowledging how incredible it is that you’ve gotten as far as you have. That despite how difficult this path has been, you haven’t given up. That even though you’ve felt hopeless and defeated, you keep showing up every day and trying your best. Because that’s what matters.

When life gets hard, try to practice moving away from thoughts of “Why is this happening to me?” and “It’s not fair” and “Everything is awful” to “How will this experience help me grow?” and “What does this struggle have to teach me?”