“No one can be helped if they don’t want it” is one of my truths.

Oh boy, this has been one of the hardest truths and lessons.

When I learn new and useful information, I want everyone to know about it! I mean, why wouldn’t they? Their life will be changed! Their problems will be solved! They will feel happier and healthier and inspired!

Except when I first started sharing information, people did not feel those things. Instead, they felt pressured and lacking and unheard. They didn’t want my help. And that felt like a dagger to my heart.

But sometimes the truth hurts.

And the truth is, no one can be helped if they don’t want the help. Until they are ready, I can share my knowledge more broadly and acknowledge that we are all on our individual journeys – not everyone’s problems can be or will be solved by me.

“Everything happens for a reason” is one of my truths.

When I first started believing this, it was only in hindsight because I was removed enough from the pain of the experience to see its lessons. As I noticed more and more incidents in my life that supported this truth, it became stronger and stronger.

And as that has happened, I have been able to employ this truth while being in some terrible, no-good situations. This has required a lot of trust to believe. And sometimes I don’t choose that wider lens because, after all, I am human and sometimes things just suck.

Maybe one day I will be able to have that lens 24/7/365 and maybe not. Only time will tell.

While I feel this truth deep in my bones, I do not think this is a truth for me to preach to others as gospel because if I were to do that, it’d basically be gaslighting the hurt that people feel. This truth is mine alone and not anyone else’s unless they feel it deep in their bones as well.

“Self-examination is the start of the real journey” is one of my truths.

Whatever journey that we are on this planet to take requires that first, we know ourselves. The journey is not worthwhile if the passenger isn’t present.

Self-examination starts with observation – curiosity of why we do the things we do or why we are the way we are. Being able to sit in some discomfort of not knowing is good practice. Sometimes we have to try on a bunch of identities along the way and observing what feels good and true to us and what doesn’t will help us know if the one we are trying on is true to us or not.

It is scary to realize that we don’t know who we are. In reality, we know exactly who we are but social and cultural conditioning as well as life experiences make things a bit murky. It may feel impossible to describe who we are. Once we un-condition socially and culturally and turn those life experiences into life lessons, then we can start the process of reclaiming ourselves.

Progress is a process.

It does not happen overnight or over a fortnight.

It may not be distinguishable at a human level. In fact, it may happen in little ant steps only discernible at an ant level, but when thousands of little ant steps are taken a day, there is only one word for that – progress.

It may not look like how Bethany or Gabby are doing it. But part of the process of progress is to do it our own way. Find what works for you and double down.

I have shared on more than one occasion that I see my writing as glorified journaling.

My journaling started with a blue, wide-ruled Mead notebook back in fourth grade. Throughout my youth and teenage years, my journal was my confidante, and I shared my most pressing problems and important thoughts. When I read those thoughts now, they seem trivial and immature. That is because I have grown. But those feelings were an important part of my growth.

The glory in writing lies as much in the future reading of it as much as in the experience of writing it. My journals are time capsules to emotions and memories that are long gone.

Reading that writing allows me to bear witness to me again. In the writing process, I feel seen and heard even though no one is there beside me. Reading it much later on shows me where I’ve been and how growth is very much part of the journey.