Lou

“No one will retrieve my lost heart
amidst so many roots, in the bitter freshness
of the sun multiplied by the fury of the water,
there the shadow lives that does not travel with me.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

“What makes this constant assessing and comparing so self-defeating is that we are often comparing our lives, our marriages, our families, and our communities to unattainable, media-driven visions of perfection, or we’re holding up our reality against our own fictional account of how great someone else has it. Nostalgia is also a dangerous form of comparison.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

“To be loved and to love, takes courage. To be fully seen is incredibly rare and breathtaking. We lower our masks and see a celestial inner being. It is our full self -- the supernova as well as the black holes. Our fears and doubts. Our anger and joy...This is love.”
― Carolyn Riker, Blue Clouds: A Collection of Soul’s Creative Intelligence

“Be loved for who you are, for everything that constitutes you. Be loved for your core beliefs, your strengths and weaknesses, your admirable traits and troublesome baggage. Be loved for you, because anything less is not love at all.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year