Many of us don’t realize that we have a choice about which aspect of ourselves we will use as the foundation upon which we build our lives.

If we are willing to allow our dark side to be a part of the whole of who we are, we will find it comes equipped with all the power, skill, intelligence, and force needed to do great things in the world.

I define God as an energy. A spiritual energy. It has no denomination, it has no judgment, it has an energy that when we're connected to it we know why we're here and what we're here to do.

We are all stronger than we can ever imagine being. Every choice matters starting with today. And today, I choose to live.

We each need to become our own hero.

In trying to express only those aspects of ourselves that we believe will guarantee us the acceptance of others, we suppress some of our most valuable and interesting features and sentence ourselves to a life of reenacting the same outworn scripts. Reclaiming the parts of ourselves that we have relegated to the shadow is the most reliable path to actualizing all of our human potential. Once befriended, our shadow becomes a divine map that—when properly read and followed—reconnects us to the life we were meant to live and the people we were meant to be.

If we want a new future that does not look like our past, we must make new choices in the present.