There is no “letting go.” I would dare to take it further and say there is no healing from trauma. For nearly 25 years, I’ve waited to get over the traumas that have amassed across my life. The pursuit of this healing has felt a great deal like a search for God – for something elusive, divine, and that may or may not exist.

Who are we without our addictions; without our media-induced hungers? So often the voices we hear echoing in our mind are not our own but that of our influencers. Isolation, while arguably going against human nature, is essential for mental and emotional health. Solitude is a detoxification of all that distorts our personality and misguides our path in life. It allows us to filter out the foreign opinions and hear our own voice – reach our authentic character – and practice fidelity to self.

Do not hold a lazy faith. Miracles are not spontaneous events we must wait for helplessly. Miracles are an achievement – a breakthrough accomplished by those who pushed themselves beyond what was thought possible while holding a belief in a better life. Get up off your knees, and roll up your sleeves.

We can’t deny our journey. We can’t pretend we’re fine when we’re not. All we can do is own it – own our suffering.

I’m broken. We’re all broken and right now we’re all isolated within that brokenness. The cure for the loneliness is connection – connection with that broken part of ourselves and with each other – and we can’t achieve that connection while pretending we are okay. We’re not okay.

We must seek out that which invigorates us, and engage it at all fronts. Art, music, literature, conversation, travel, nature – whatever it is that keeps the fire of our spirit bright – we must build our life around it; for, without our passions, the years ahead become a burden rather than a gift.

I burned by bridges so the devil couldn’t follow me.

Question everything – no matter how beloved, or how long-held, or how exalted – without apology. Only those who build their world upon lies need fear an inquisitive mind. The truth will remain, even after a storm of doubt and revolution has washed over it. Only illusions need be protected. The truth need not be defended; it existed before us and will continue to exist after us.

Question everything—no matter how beloved, or how long-held, or how exalted—without apology. Only those who build their world upon lies need fear an inquisitive mind. The truth will remain, even after a storm of doubt and revolution has washed over it. Only illusions need be protected. The truth need not be defended; it existed before us and will continue to exist after us.

Being connected to everything has disconnected us from ourselves and the preciousness of this present moment.