“My dad used to say, ‘Just be yourself and you’ll be fine,’ but it’s really, really true.”

From the fear and constriction that’s sort of always pulling us back and keeping us in old modalities, I feel like any expansive act of kindness, thoughtfulness, and generosity, helps tip the scale toward a more conscious, liberated existence for everyone.

You gotta love yourself, because when you’re hurting – you never know who’s gonna be around to do the lovin’ for ya. You gotta love yourself through the pain.

The smallest act has repercussions for the universe.

I foster a lot. Not humans, animals.

I wouldn’t make it through the day without singing. It is my solace and my meditation and my release. It lets me know how I’m processing things, what I’m processing, if I’m out of touch in some area.

The pain is always bringing me a lesson. If I listen to the lesson when the pain is manageable, the pain won’t get gargantuan and flatten me entirely, because I will have received the message at the center.

Notorious’ is a masterwork. I can watch it every day.

There are a lot of women who feel that they have done all the work in their relationship only for someone else to step in and take the love and credit for it.

I have to meditate before I go to bed, always. I have to let the day go and let the eternal in.

I have to welcome the pain like I welcome the joy.

Love is a true unconditional space to me. To love someone or to be loved is to be seen, and I think, gosh, as humans, all we want is to be seen, to be heard, right? To be valued. To be respected. But mostly just to be held in a safe, unconditional space.

I think true beauty is everywhere. Be it. See it. Notice it. Love it. Be grateful for it. Marvel at it. It’s everywhere. It’s all around us all the time.

It’s a lot of fun to just say to people, proudly, ‘I get to play the First Lady.’ It’s just fun to say.

Absolutely undermining my confidence in every moment. Bad tape in my head all the time.

I used to be so hard on myself. So hard on myself. Just my own worst critic to the nth degree.

The more I resist anything, the stronger it gets.

I understand Being in all and over all, as there is nothing without participation in Being, and there is no being without Essence. Thus nothing can be free of the Divine Presence.

A mind that has come to the stillness of wisdom shall know being, shall know what it is to love. Love is neither personal nor impersonal. Love is love, not to be defined or described by the mind as exclusive or inclusive. Love is its own eternity; it is the real, the supreme, the immeasurable.

If you can’t be yourself, what’s the point of being anyone else?

I remember being about six years old, for the first day of school, and sitting in the back of a Chrysler, pretending to cry while listening to Tracy Chapman.

I like the nucleus that we have. I’m excited. I want to be here as long as possible. It’s like family. I love being here.

Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for.

I have this thing about being acknowledged and accepted by institutions.

And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being loved is intolerable to many.