“Oftentimes, especially during my recovery, I didnt need to think about everything I was doing wrong; instead, I needed to focus more on what I was doing rightand then do more of the right stuff. I ...”

“In the past, I was a perpetual victim; how I was doing in any given moment depended on what happened to me. Today I do my best to avoid this kind of victim thinking. Instead, how I am doing is dete...”

“With Ed, I always pushed away the good and only heard the bad. Today, I let in the good.”

“When we feel like giving up, like we are beyond help, we must remember that we are never beyond hope. Holding on to hope has always motivated me to keep trying. I have found this hope by connecting...”

“My job is not to worry about what everyone else thinks about me but to discover what I think. If I actually want to know what someone else thinks, my job is then to ask that person. More often than...”

“Ironically, this physically weak feeling signifies that Im actually getting stronger. I know from my past that I will ultimately feel strong if I just sit with the feeling and experience it.”

“My parents' work ethic amazed me. How could they put in such long hours, day after day?Part of the reason was to keep the family going - to keep me going. I realized that, although we had different...”

“We were very different, and we disagreed about a lot of things, but he was always so interesting, you know?”

“We were more alike than any of the others, neither of us quite human and both hated by the two species we drifted between.”

“Oftentimes, especially during my recovery, I didnt need to think about everything I was doing wrong; instead, I needed to focus more on what I was doing rightand then do more of the right stuff. I ...”

“Ironically, this physically weak feeling signifies that Im actually getting stronger. I know from my past that I will ultimately feel strong if I just sit with the feeling and experience it.”

“In the past, my brain could only compute perfection or failurenothing in between. So words like competent, acceptable, satisfactory, and good enough fell into the failure category. Even above avera...”

“I have gained wisdom from leaning into my pain, in not allowing the hounds of hell to snap at my heels anymore. Now I turn around, call them by name, and let them know I am prepared to fight.”

“One of the hardest things was learningthat I wasworth recovery.”

“You deserve this. Even when you feel like you dont. You do. You deserve to have a healthy, loving, grace-filled relationship with yourself. You deserve to stop hurting in secret and in shame. You d...”