How To Be Alone (and Together): 72 Lessons On Being At Peace With Yourself

by Megan Bruneau

We end up enduring long-term dissatisfaction because we don’t want to risk short-term discomfort.

If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’re going to get what you’ve always gotten.

The next time you're experiencing anxiety, ask yourself, "How much of this is anxiety and how much is excitement?"

when we start putting pressure on ourselves or expecting it to go a certain way, we feel anxiety. When we remember that we’re resourced and resilient and perceive the new experience as an adventure—not a test—we’re far more likely to feel excitement.

Accept that love cannot exist without grief.

Courage is not the absence of fear; courage is fear, walking.

sometimes we have to love from afar. When someone's war with his or herself is causing damage to us—when we become punching bags or objects of projected self-loathing—we're not being compassionate to ourselves or others. In fact, we're often enabling others and abandoning ourselves.

for how long will you let hope hurt you before you choose to accept what is?"

We don’t heal so we can live without pain. We heal so we can live with it.

The sobering and liberating truth is that we never reach a point where we're exempt from the difficult emotions that accompany being human.

When you strip away the stories, everything is just a passing sensation.

stop beating yourself up for being human.

We live from fear, not authenticity.. We operate from “should” not “want.“

Take a moment and gently consider just how insignificant you are. How it seems like because you’re watching the movie of your life, everyone is watching it. Let go of some of that perceived pressure to be perfect. I promise that no one is thinking about your flaws even 0.03% as much as you are.

things my body does instead of focusing on how it looks, I began to appreciate how cool it is.

sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.

despite what perfectionism tells us, we can’t carefully orchestrate our lives to avoid discomfort.

when I see someone who appears content, I wonder what struggles they had to persevere through to get to that point.

quit judging yourself for coping, but also allow yourself to be curious about what you might be running from.

instead of focusing on what you wish had happened, focus on how a negative event evoked growth or led to something positive.

trust that when you’re in the midst of something shitty, you’ll eventually be able to reflect on the experience as a formative pit stop on the road trip of your life.