Breathe. Don't panic and flee. Sink. Feel it all. Imagine. Let it burn. - Glennon Doyle

Be careful with the stories you tell about yourself

I knew what she'd tell me. She'd say, "Something's off about my life. I feel restless and frustrated. I have this hunch that everything was supposed to be more beautiful than this. I imagine fenceless, wide-open savannas. I want to run and hunt and kill. I want to sleep under an ink-black, silent sky filled with stars. It's all so real I can taste it." Then she'd look back at the cage, the only home she's ever known. She'd look at the smiling zookeepers, the bored spectators, and her panting, bouncing, begging best friend, the Lab. She'd sigh and say, "I should be grateful. I have a good enough life here. It's crazy to long for what doesn't even exist." I'd say: Tabitha. You are not crazy. You are a goddamn cheetah.

The truth of my thirties was: Stay on your mat, Glennon. The staying is making you. The truth of my forties is: I'm made. I will not stay, not ever again — in a room or conversation or relationship or institution that requires me to abandon myself. When my body tells me the truth, I'll believe it. I trust myself now, so I will no longer suffer voluntarily or silently or for long. I'll look at those women to my left and right who must stay, because it's that time for them, because they have to know what love and God and freedom are not before they can know what love and God and freedom are. Because they want to know. Because they are warriors.