5
" When someone is judging you, it's unlikely that their judgment is actually about you. As I see it, we're all carrying around a bunch of suitcases. We have our insecurities suitcase. We have our stress suitcase. We have our guilt and our worries suitcases. Some suitcases we might have been carrying since our childhood, stories we were told about who we are that aren't even true. They're fiction that we were handed, picked up, believed, and still carry. Sometimes a person comes along with one of their suitcases, with their issues all packed up and ready to go, and they try to hand it to us. Do not pick up that suitcase! Do not pick it up! Because if you pick up their suitcase, you will be up all night, worrying if what they said about you is true, stressing yourself out, questioning yourself, getting bitter, and feeding your insecurities. Over a suitcase that never belonged to you in the first place.
So if people keep trying to hand off their suitcases to you like you're a bellhop, you might need to break up with them the same way you would break off an unhealthy relationship with an emotionally abusive boyfriend. And as you go through life, trying to figure out how to ferry around those suitcases that do belong to you (and we all have our own stuff . . . the stuffiest of stuffs!), don't try to hand those off to someone else as a way to try to get rid of your pain. Instead, sit down with a friend or a great therapist and have a big, nonjudgmental "let's unpack these suitcases together" session. "
― Kristina Kuzmic , Hold On, But Don't Hold Still
13
" When I was nineteen years old, I was babysitting a little five-year-old girl. She kept drawing picture after picture, and as I saw there watching her draw, I asked, "Do you want to be an artist when you grow up?"
"What do you mean?"
"An artist," I replied. "Is that what you want to be when you grow up?"
She looked at me, confused, and said, "But I already am an artist."
She was right. She didn't need to wait to grow up in order to be an artist. She already was one. Childhood is not a rehearsal for life; childhood is life and children are already whole people. "
― Kristina Kuzmic , Hold On, But Don't Hold Still
14
" Part of the process of getting to know my children is helping them figure out what they're passionate about. And when I say passionate, I don't mean just, "What do you love?" I also want to know, "What angers you? What angers you about the world? What breaks your heart?" Pay attention to all the strong emotions, whether they're good or bad, because intensity shows how genuinely they care about something. If I can get my kids to pinpoint what really makes them *feel* and then combine that with who they are-- hyper, talkative, patient, great at math--I can help them begin to map out what they're meant to do with their lives. "
― Kristina Kuzmic , Hold On, But Don't Hold Still