You can meditate, exercise, eat “well”, practice self-compassion, do yoga, spend time with loved ones, love yourself, go to therapy, get outdoors, and repeat affirmations over and over, but what you cannot do is outrun the harder parts of life.
We're all traveling this path together.
We don’t have to be without struggle. We don’t have to finally get “there” (hint: there IS no there). We don’t have to shame ourselves for when things just feel hard. We don’t have to set ourselves up for feeling like we aren’t doing enough or aren’t healed enough or aren’t working hard enough just because we haven’t reached enlightenment. Struggling and being human is not a flaw to fix or hide.
When we can be kind to ourselves and allow ourselves to be fully human (which includes dealing with more challenging and painful moments), those moments move through us. When we give ourselves permission to feel whatever we are feeling, those feelings move through us. When we stop criticizing ourselves for not being happy 100% of the time, we make more room to fully experience the totality of being alive. There’s nothing more beautiful to me than that – even when it hurts sometimes.