Jen Turrell

“Here you are.
Still standing. Fierce with the reality of love and loss. Wearing the truth of our hearts on your tattered sleeves. And yes, this one very nearly took you out. And yes, there were days when the darkness was heavy and the climb out of that rabbit hole required you to mine your depths for strength you didn’t even know you had.

But here you are.
Broken open by hope. Cracked wide by loss. Full of longing and grief and the burn of that phoenix fire. Warrior painted with ashes. Embers from the blaze still clinging to your newborn skin, leaving you forever marked with scars of rebirth.

And just look at you. Heart broken but still beating. Arms empty but still open. Face raised to the sky and giving thanks for the light, even when it hurts your eyes.

My god, you are beautiful.”
― Jeanette LeBlanc

“I’ve lost my wild heart once. Twice. Too many times to count.

I’ve lost her most often when I’ve forgotten myself, when I’ve denied my own truths, when I’ve pushed down the need to create for so long that my heart...she finds better things to do.

The funny thing is, that the losing and the finding are interwoven.

We must lose our wild hearts from time to time, I believe.

We must so that we know why we need them.

We must so that we remember that in order to be found we must go into the wilderness.
Sometimes, it is only in the getting lost that we can find our way back home.”
― Jeanette LeBlanc, Wild Heart Writing: A 30-Day Course to Rediscover Your Deepest Truths

“We don’t, not any of us, get to this point clean. No. We’re all dirty and ragged. Rough edges and sharp corners. Fault lines and demolition zones. We’ve got tear gas riot squads aiming straight for the protest lines of our weary souls. Landmines in our chests that we trip over every time we try to hide from the terrifying tremble of our own war torn hearts....But it is your history that delivered you this roadmap of scars. Those healed wounds and their jagged edges are proof of your infinite ability to survive, to knit broken back to wholeness, to refuse that the end is every really the end...
Make friends with your teardown. Do not run from your bar brawl for forgiveness. Sit with the times you’ve fucked up and the times you lost all and the days your redemption was delivered by the hand of the last person you ever expected to give anything but darkness. And through it all know that your walled up and torn down, graffiti-covered heart is still the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
― Jeanette LeBlanc

“Some days we need as much quiet courage as we can muster. NOt to risk our lives or our hearts to break paradigms or change the world. But just to wake up and push through the small and aching spaces. To sit down and do the work. To show up in love and fullness. Sometimes, just those things take so much. If this is you today, know that we are in it together. And there’s got to be some power in that.”
― Jeanette LeBlanc