Gregory Owen

“Recently, I read a stack of old journals I had stored in a box. They held the musings of different versions of myself stretching from age nine to 29. As I read through them, I realized how foreign the words on those pages felt. I didn't hear my own voice in those journals, but rather someone else's; someone distinctly different from the person I am today.

And I realize that who I was is not who I am. Who I am is a state of consciousness that changes with time and experience. More than that, it changes with every wave of emotion as it comes and goes. To be is a fluid experience.

The joy of being is learning how to embrace that flow.”
― Elizabeth Carlton

“I learned that there is healing in expressing the ugly ... Sometimes the only way to pull the weeds inside your soul is to vomit out your vitriol.

The exorcism of deeply harbored pain eased my feelings of anxiety. It tempered the physical illnesses bred by emotional pain and taught me just how tied one's mental and emotional health is to their physical state.

There is a lot of unseen optimism beyond the murky depths of my darker musings. Smiles and laughter and joy and intimacy have grown in the empty spaces left by things long-held but finally released. And while the tsunamis and the waves still sometimes break against the quieting waters of my soul, I am learning to ride them with more grace and less water in my lungs.”
― Elizabeth Carlton