If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last year, it’s that in most situations, you’ll stumble upon your biggest breakthroughs just beyond what you think you can stand. Endurance is a magnificent thing. If we choose to actively pursue it, our capacity to bounce back stronger after emotional trauma is a nod to how remarkable the human spirit is. I think we assume we can’t do something simply because it looks scary, because it hurts, or because it seems difficult. To gain access to that type of endurance, you have to surrender to the growth it lends itself to. That type of growth takes hard work and heart work, and there are no shortcuts. Which leads me to the piece you’re now reading. Publishing this is well-beyond the edge of my comfort zone. I’m taking a big mothertruckin’ step here. I’ve avoided for this piece for an entire week. I could sit here and say I don’t know why, but I do. Because, hello! It’s scary. It hurts. It’s difficult. It doesn’t mean I …

We talk so often about practicing self-love, which I believe is the greatest gift we can give ourselves. But if we’re being real (which we always are here) loving any person, all the time, including ourselves, is hard. Sometimes, you can’t. Sometimes you’re not equipped to love yourself that deeply at the drop of the hat. Loving yourself that deeply in every moment is exhausting. Sometimes, it’s enough to simply like ourselves. Let’s start there. Let’s start with thinking about our best qualities, and projecting that energy out into the world. Because I’ll tell you something. I am OVER the mindset that we are all supposed to sort of hate ourselves, using qualifiers to sheepishly admit our few redeeming qualities. Let’s start with finding reasons from within to be confident instead of looking to others for validation and acceptance. Let’s look in the mirror and let go of that one glaring flaw in favor of appreciating all the things the universe got right in assembling us. And in the name of not being the BIGGEST …

  From grade school through college, I grew up playing an array of team sports, from soccer, to track, to volleyball. The first team sport that really grabbed me was basketball. There was something uniquely exhilarating about sprinting up and down the court, facing off against someone of similar-ish stature, and often times having to root my feet and use my body as a human shield. This, of course, was done all in the name of stopping the other humans wearing the different colored jerseys from getting a little orange bouncy ball into my team’s basket. The camaraderie, the support, the blood, sweat, tears, the gnawing of mouth guards in between whistles and referee sign language, the green gatorade bottles, the sound of the buzzer, the last second shot. I loved it all. One of my most vivid memories from the basketball days of my youth is standing at the free throw line for hours at a time. A moment of uninterrupted silence in a hushed gymnasium, just me and the basket. My free throw …

I’m just going to cut right to the heart of this post: Sometimes I have these moments of panic where I’m like, “WHY AREN’T YOU WRITING?” Why is this not your career? Why aren’t you doing this thing that you love that you’ve been doing since you were four when your preschool teacher wrote in your student journal, “Carley spends a lot of time at the writing station, I think she’s destined to be a writer.” And that’s a scary thing to think about – that maybe I’m doing this whole thing wrong. I know there isn’t really a way to do this thing “right”, because really, we’re all getting out of bed every day and doing the best we can. Still, it’s a scary thing to consciously accept that there’s this gift that I’m neglecting. I don’t mean to say “gift” implying that I’ve been “gifted” with this incredible talent, because I haven’t. There are millions of writers out there who I admire, and are more talented than I am. There are millions of …