One of my newer mantras I’ve given space to inside my head recently is “allow yourself to be a work in progress”. The cracks and broken pieces of our lives are what actually shape us; often much more so than the smooth sailing or times when we are effectively coasting on autopilot.
If we stop to consider the spaces of our lives where we have built up resilience, authenticity, kindness and bravery, it’s during our hard fought battles of being our most imperfect and messy selves. Those are the “lessons” that life gifts us once we’ve weathered the storm and made it to the other side of our anger, grief, loneliness and despair.
One of my favorite quotes says that “the butterfly is only beautiful because the caterpillar is brave” and I can’t help but think of the bravery needed to go within to those dark spaces (cocoon) inside of our own hearts and minds to heal all that we have weathered and all that we still carry.

Another favorite quote: “nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know” by Pema Chodron, helps to remind us that until we learn and heal what our life is trying to teach us, we will keep reliving and repeating our same old and overdone mistakes and missteps. As a perfectly imperfect person, (that’s trying very hard to be the brave caterpillar), I long to learn the lessons and get to the part where I’m a beautiful butterfly full of wisdom, insight and peace. But, the part of me that is all too often ever so very human, proves once again that I’m stubborn and probably not paying enough attention in this class called life.
The journey will only take us so far. Pay attention to & embrace the lessons along the way.
💜- Danielle
