Love wants your growth and your full expression and your inner YES, out loud and all over the place. You did not come here to be quiet, or to work all day in a box, to live in a box and drive in a box and stare at a box and think in a box and go back to your box and stare at another one all night. That is not your purpose here. You are not here to cling to sad stories and tell yourself what you cannot do, to dwell on your past and feed it and keep it alive so it spills all over your present. You are not here to wither, to make yourself small, to buy into the idea that you are somehow not enough. You are not here to be a size zero unless you were made that way, and you are not here to get ripped until your biceps bulge, although you’re free to do that if you wish; it’s just not your purpose. You are not here to amass money and things.

You are no less miraculous than the trees and the stars and the moon in the sky. No less unique than a snowflake. You are not here to hide, or to make yourself like anyone else. That would be a crime against your soul. You are not here to be hard and tough, and you are not here to compete in order to survive.

You, my friend, are here to love. To open and to blossom and to release yourself from any feelings that you are not amazing. You’re an expression of love in human form and all you really have to do is open to that, and let it out. It’s not as hard as we make it out to be. Fear lives in the mind, and it sleeps with doubt and should and rage and resentment. It hangs out with bitterness and blame. Love lives in your heart. It’s a beautiful thing to thirst for answers, to be open to many, to recognize there are some questions you won’t ever resolve, but to be curious anyway. To seek anyway. The mind can be an incredibly powerful tool for your growth, for your understanding of who you are and what you need to be at peace. Discernment lives in your mind as well. But your truth lives in your heart.

The earth is spinning. You are just as wondrous and beautiful and full of life and movement and possibility as any waterfall, the light reflects off of you just as much, but the earth won’t stop and wait for you while you figure that out. If you’re caught up in something: a job, a relationship, a way of thinking about yourself or about the world that is dimming your light and making you feel this life is not beautiful, get out and get out now. Listen to your heart, and use your mind to make a new plan. Because you could be shining, that’s the thing. You could be so full of gratitude just to get up in the morning. To hear the laughter of people you love, or to be the cause of it. To see the sun bouncing off the leaves of a tree right outside your house. To feel the breeze on your cheek. To see the twinkle in someone’s eye, to be present, awake, aware. You could be grateful when your heart breaks that you were able to love so much, and thankful for this experience, even though it’s full of mystery and the ride isn’t easy. You could find your place and fall into the flow and offer up everything you’ve got for as long as you’ve got.

If you need to be hung upside down and shaken a little to figure that out, I surely wish I could crawl through your computer screen and do that for you. Just pick you up by your ankles and shake you until you were laughing like you did when you were six years old. Shake you until all the change fell out of your pockets, along with every negative thought you have about yourself or anyone else, because that’s just dead weight, it has no potential. Shake out your doubts and your fears so you could hear the tinny sound they’d make when they hit the floor, and then watch them roll away, realizing they’re so much smaller than you thought. Shake out that thing someone said once that hurt you to your core. And that awful moment that terrified you and made you want to run. And not set you right side up until the only thing left inside you was that limitless well of love you possess, and that huge smile on your face. I’d love to shake you like that. I hope I just did, even a little. Sending you so much love, Ally