Vironika Tugaleva

Award-winning author, poet, spoken word artist

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Quotes From The Art of Talking to Yourself

Instead of labelling your emotions as problems to solve, you can see them as signals to interpret. Instead of judging your desires as shameful aberrations, you can learn to meet them in healthier ways. Instead of calling yourself critical names when you cannot build or break certain habits, you can explore your motivations. You can become a student of yourself rather than always seeking a wiser teacher. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Remember that when things don't go according to plan, they go according to truth. No matter how painful the reality, it is reality nonetheless. There is dignity in facing the truth without trying to cut it down to a more manageable size. There is honour in acceptance. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

When you love people, you are curious about who they are, what they think, and how they feel. You watch them closely, wondering about their experience and what you can do to make it more enjoyable. You feel compassion for their pain and seek to make it more bearable. You are eager to learn the unique language of their existence. You want to understand them, inspire them, heal them. What if you could look at your own self this way? Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself. — “When you love people, you are curious about who they are, what they think, and how they feel. You watch them closely, wondering about their experience and what you can do to make it more enjoyable. You feel compassion for their pain and seek to make it more bearable. You are eager to learn the unique language of their existence. You want to understand them, inspire them, heal them. What if you could look at your own self this way?” ~Vironika Tugaleva, The Art of Talking to Yourself

You have been searching for answers, but you are the answer. You have been looking for the path, but you are the path. You have been working on the perfect mask, but you already have such a beautiful face. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

One thing is for sure—you will make mistakes. Learn to learn from them. Learn to forgive yourself. Learn to laugh when everything falls apart because, sometimes, it will. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

To live how you feel is right takes the same effort as to live how you’re told is right. The work is the same. What is different is the reward. No amount of approval and no size of achievement can ever fill the space reserved for your opinion of yourself. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Self-awareness is a way of life. It is not a fad. It is not a pill. It is not a cream you can apply to the rash on your heart. Self-awareness is like eating, breathing, sleeping. There will be no fireworks, no miracle transformation. Instead, you will experience a slow, conscious, and often painful unraveling of your highest potential. One day, you will see that this is more magical than any so-called magic potion. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

You are the world's foremost expert on yourself. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

You're already stuck with yourself for a lifetime. Why not improve this relationship? Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from The Art of Talking to Yourself.

You don’t need to wait for someone else to notice your talents before nourishing them. You don’t need others to accept you to feel accepted. You don’t need to wait. You can begin, at any moment, to work on noticing, nourishing, and accepting yourself. You can work on being a better friend to your reflection. You can start listening to yourself like you wish other people would. You can become curious about who you are. You can begin to learn the language of your mind and body so that you can decode it, understand it, speak it. You can work on understanding yourself instead of always trying to make yourself into someone else. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Within you is a fountain of wisdom. And you sell yourself short every time you allow some authority to define your limitations and cage your potential. Even if that authority lives in your head. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

As you dig your teeth into your assumptions, your teeth become sharper. You can dig deeper. You become what the world needs simply by helping yourself. It’s not easy, but it is worth it. The truth, as they say, hurts. But they also say it sets you free. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

If we assume that comfort comes from outside ourselves, we will search for it in clothes and TV shows, labels and facts, bread and sugar. But once we find comfort within, we stop searching. The same goes for love, understanding, acceptance. When we think these things come from other people, we become addicted to approval and attention. When we discover our own potential to be the lover and the beloved, we stop grasping for others’ reactions. We find completion within ourselves. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Allow yourself to trust that the bigger pattern of life resides within you as much as you reside within it. Trust that there is already something going on. Trust that, when you are not holding yourself together so tightly, you will not fall apart. Trust that the flow of life contains you, is bigger than you, and will take care of you—if you let it. Let yourself experience this. Let yourself practice. You cannot build self-trust by reciting affirmations all day. You have to get out there and take some chances. Experience life. Experience yourself. Taste yourself fully. It won’t just give you happiness and meaning; it’ll also protect you from the flavour experts who are out to sell you on being a better recipe than you already are. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Don’t let your ideas about what you can do keep you from trying. And don’t sell yourself short just because other people didn’t (or don’t) see your potential. You don’t need to treat yourself as poorly as you’ve been treated. With a bit of curiosity, you can untangle yourself from the web of others’ expectations and judgments. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

You are not a broken object to be fixed. You are a complex puzzle to be unriddled. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Only you can allow yourself to explore the person in the mirror. Only you can coax yourself into a daring adventure to find your untapped potential. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

A person who doesn’t understand flowers might tug on them to make them grow. A person who doesn’t speak the language of someplace might misread the locals’ sentiments and intentions. Yet you are already such a flower, and your inner locals—your emotions, your body, your thoughts—are already speaking to you. If you don’t learn the language of your experience, then how can you understand yourself? How can you help yourself? Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Consumerism relies on make-believe. We buy fad diets and get-rich-quick schemes because we mistake fantasy for truth. We suffer manipulation through blindness more than force. We don’t understand ourselves, so we believe stories about who we are and what we need. All the while, our needs go unmet. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

There is a difference between helping people and helping people buy. There is a difference between showing people their potential and selling them on a dream. There is a difference between nourishing people’s authentic desires and reinforcing their most tempting idealisms about the nature of reality. There is a difference between a guide and a guru. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

When we recognize ourselves as a part of nature, we start to care about nature’s survival as much as we care about our own. When we perceive ourselves as members of a unified human race, we start to care about other people. When we embrace the world as an extension of ourselves, we start to love it. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Most people will either use logic to analyze you or empathy to relate to you. It is a rare breed of person who can do both. Yet for each of us, such a person lives in the mirror. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Only peace, not triumph, can end a war. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

A hungry person is easier to seduce. What are you hungry for? What have you been craving for so long that you’ve settled for insufficient scraps disguising as real nourishment? What have you desired so much that you’ve allowed success stories and unrealistic claims to cloud your judgment? And whom have you trusted to feed your hunger for you? Have they done what is best for you, or have they done what is best for themselves? And whose job is it, at the end of the day, to look out for what is best for you? Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

The curiosity with which you ponder the people you love assumes that they’re worth exploring. Do you presume the same about yourself? Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

No map can lead you to a place that doesn’t exist. No miracle diet can help you achieve a sculpted body that does not need nutrition or exercise. No self-help seminar can help you become a perfect person who never says the wrong thing. No guidebook can gain you the approval of every single person you come across. These outcomes are not real. They are illusions. Self-improvement requires self-understanding, and self-understanding is not a place but a path. And there are no maps for your path because it doesn’t exist yet. You must create it yourself by conquering the unexplored territory within. Only Arthur could draw the sword Excalibur from the stone, and only you can map your path of self-discovery. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

The sooner we heal our traumas, the sooner we liberate ourselves from the people who hurt us. By hating them, we hold onto them. We cannot heal. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

No matter how painful the reality, it is reality nonetheless. There is dignity in facing the truth without trying to cut it down to a more manageable size. There is honour in acceptance. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

You cannot control the emotions, thoughts, or memories that torment you, but you can control how you choose to respond to them. And if you don’t respond as planned, you can control your response to that failure. You can meet your disappointments with acceptance and curiosity instead of judgment and criticism. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Hope for the future lies in each of us looking within. By learning to feed your own hunger, you can overcome the tempting illusions all around you. By discovering who you are, you can stop basing your self-image on other people’s ideas about you. By connecting to your inner strength, you can stop cycling between idealistic illusions and self-hating disillusionment. By taking responsibility for yourself, you can stop relying on others to take responsibility for you. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Imagine how different your life could be if you committed to discovering the reasons for your reactions rather than always trying to augment them. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva.

It all comes back to curiosity. We live in a society that objectifies us as sexual objects and status symbols. We learn to flatten ourselves and others into little words: good and bad, ugly and pretty, right and wrong, lovable and unlovable. Then, we try to discover who we are through these labels. It doesn’t work. Because a human being is more than a signpost onto which we can plaster our judgments. A person is more than a sack of flesh to lose, keep, or throw away. A human being cannot be packaged into a stale idea. A person must be experienced to be known, and this knowledge ends the moment you stop looking. Each one of us is a mystery. And the more aware you become, the more mysterious it gets. The reward for seeking truth is not the truth itself. The gift is wonder. The gift is love. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Sometimes we have to get lost before we can find ourselves. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Within you is a fountain of wisdom. And you sell yourself short each time that you allow some authority to define your limitations and cage your potential. Even if that authority lives in your head. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Before I started my healing journey, I always thought happiness was only a few pounds away. No matter how much weight I lost, it was never enough. No matter how much my stretch marks faded, they were never light enough. No matter how many blemishes healed, there was always one more. Every time I looked in the mirror, I’d say, 'Maybe next time.' Maybe next time, you’ll be pretty. Maybe next time, you’ll be perfect. Maybe next time, you’ll finally be flawless. Not today, but maybe next time. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

You have been working on the perfect mask, but you already have such a beautiful face. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Every ounce of truth you drink from the present moment washes away your assumptions. Awareness strips you naked. It hurts, but it also heals. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

They say, you can be limitless, but this cannot mean limiting ourselves to only the positive, joyful, pleasant parts of life. True limitlessness includes everything, warts and all. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

No tree tries to become a certain kind of tree. No flower tries to become a certain kind of flower. The tree and the flower open up to the sun and soak up water. Thus, they grow into themselves. No judgment. No expectations. No commentary. Your task is the same. If you can stop trying so hard to become who you think you should be, and instead commit to understanding and nourishing yourself, you will bloom into whatever kind of person you are. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

A person who doesn’t understand flowers might tug on them to make them grow. A person who doesn’t speak the language of someplace might misread the locals’ sentiments and intentions. Yet you are already such a flower, and your inner locals—your emotions, your body, your thoughts—are already speaking to you. If you don’t learn the language of your experience, then how can you understand yourself? How can you help yourself? Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Some people say they don’t believe in God, but they believe in an energy that moves through all living things. Others say they do believe in God, and they claim God is an energy moving through all living things. Some people believe in a holy book, and their faith gives them the same feeling of certainty that sustains people of other faiths as well as non-believers. Over this, we start wars. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Trying to fix ourselves while pretending to love ourselves doesn’t work. We don’t heal through objectification. We heal through understanding. We need to feel appreciated by the people who help us—ourselves included. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

The answers are not in any book. You must find them within yourself. Experiment. Run with your hunches, learn from the feedback, and keep a glass of doubt nearby. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

To explore yourself as you are, you must break free of your preconceived notions about this “self.” To find the answers to your questions, you must break free of your assumptions. You cannot write in a notebook that is already full. You cannot hear the subtle melody of one harp over a thundering orchestra. You cannot fall in love with your face if you do not take off the mask you’ve painted with society’s expectations. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

We cannot heal judgment through judgment. The only way out is through understanding. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

I found myself face to face with reality—the view I’d been avoiding all along. And reality was as it always had been: without meaning. Reality was neither ugly nor ravishing. It was neither joyful nor depressing. It was neither good nor bad. It was neither endless suffering nor endless progress. It was not even something in-between. Reality was the raw data I hadn’t analyzed, the full dictionary I hadn’t turned to speech, the endless night sky before I chose a favourite star. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

You cannot fall in love with your face if you do not take off the mask you’ve painted with society’s expectations. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

One particularly harmful idea carried by our cultural narrative is that you need to find someone who will love you. Imagine if we believed this about any other basic need: food, water, oxygen. If you needed another person to provide you with those, you’d be considered dependent—if not disabled. Yet we so willingly put ourselves in this state with love. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Your journey will be different from the journeys of others. Allow it to be. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

If someone else notices our qualities and talents, we think those parts of us must be worthwhile. Our potential floats like an island in the sea—uncharted, unexplored. We long for someone to discover us, admire us, colonize us. But why must it be another person? Why can’t you sail that voyage and explore yourself? Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

The less you demand to know, the more you will understand. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

When we feel a hole widening within us, we scramble to fill it. We work so hard to avoid feeling empty, but emptiness is essential. Allow that hole to widen. Let it eat you alive. The void is as important as the fullness. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

A truth seeker doesn’t put spices on each moment before tasting it and thus knows reality’s many flavours. Even the bitter. Even the sour. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Your inner conversation decides the quality of each moment in your life; and beyond the quality of each moment, what else is there? What else matters? Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

I may never be healed; but each day, I am healing. My work is never finished, but I have grown to love working. My life is my art. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

How can I understand better? You could ask this question hundreds of times every day for the rest of your life, and it would not be too much. The more you practice this, the less you will feel like you know; yet the closer you will be to the truth. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

The first leg of our healing journey, we spend paralyzed. We watch ourselves doing the same old thing, unable to stop it. This is normal. We begin deaf. Then, we learn to listen. Then, we gain the ability to speak. Pressuring yourself to take action right away would be like forcing yourself to sleep in the daytime. The day has another purpose. As do the early phases of awareness. Paralysis teaches you to embrace uncertainty, build curiosity, and practice acceptance. What a gift. Life keeps you from speeding through her lessons. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

So listen, watch, wonder. Relish the stars dancing in the sky above you. Let each moment show you who you are and why you are here. Stay humble. Stay open. And don’t forget to laugh at yourself once in a while. No one will understand you, except the ones lying in the grass beside you, laughing at the same incomprehensible stars. And that, my friend, will be a life well lived. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Looking at ourselves honestly can be overwhelming. Observing other people’s unedited reactions to us can be humiliating. But ignorance comes with its own price, whether or not we acknowledge paying it. Discomfort is crucial to self-observation. Our inner mirrors, like our inner windows, can be dirty or clean. Every ounce of truth you drink from the present moment washes away your assumptions. Awareness strips you naked. It hurts, but it also heals. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Self-understanding is a lifetime endeavour. It is not a weekend seminar. It does not come in capsule form. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Look. Look within—not with an agenda but with curiosity. Look with love. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Self-understanding is a lifetime endeavour. It is not a weekend seminar. It does not come in capsule form. Every moment is ripe with opportunities to understand yourself better. Yet the moment is empty-handed. You are the source. The potential for awareness exists in every moment because it exists, first and foremost, inside you. You are the one with an inner conversation waiting to be deciphered. You are full of ingredients waiting to be cooked into tantalizing flavours. You are waiting to be experimented with. A chemical reaction waiting to happen. A story waiting to be told. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Who can see inside the deepest recesses of your imagination and manifest those wishes into your daily experience? Who can appreciate the subtle nuances of character you’ve acquired by overcoming your deepest fears? Who can acknowledge the demons that are no longer controlling you because of the work you’ve done to release them? Who can see the strength left behind in the wake of your toughest struggles? Who will see you for who you are—appreciating everything that is there, everything that is not, and everything that can be—if you do not? Who else can? Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Will we allow opposing ideas to lie down with the ones we believe are true? Or will we treat every piece of evidence that conflicts with our beliefs as an enemy attacker? Until we make a purposeful effort to do the former, we will unconsciously continue to do the latter. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

The most tragic war of our time is the one within. A war between what we knew as children and what we’ve learned as adults. A war between wisdom and intelligence. A war between the natural colour of our hair and the colour we chemically impose upon it. A war between the manicured hedges and the untouched wilderness. A war between reality and fairy tales. A war between what we could learn about the world and what we are systematically taught. A war that can end in peace. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

No tree tries to become a certain kind of tree. No flower tries to become a certain kind of flower. The tree and the flower open up to the sun and soak up water. Thus, they grow into themselves. No judgment. No expectations. No commentary. Your task is the same. If you can stop trying so hard to become who you think you should be, and instead commit to understanding and nourishing yourself, you will bloom into whatever kind of person you are. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

As you dig your teeth into your assumptions, your teeth become sharper. You can dig deeper. You become what the world needs simply by helping yourself. It’s not easy, but it is worth it. The truth, as they say, hurts. But they also say it sets you free. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

No matter where we go, having a best friend to laugh and cry with makes all the difference. Such a friend is irreplaceable. There will always be someone funnier, sexier, stronger, richer, but no one can take the place of our memories, our jokes, our secrets whispered in the night. You can develop this kind of intimacy with yourself. After all, you’re already stuck with yourself for a lifetime. Why not improve this relationship? Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Even if there was a universally correct choice you could make in every situation, you could never know if you’d made it. Uncertainty hugs our every decision like the stratosphere hugs the Earth. It is as crucial a part of human existence as oxygen. You can never become smart enough to erase all doubt, so why try? Throw out your pens. Write your answers in pencil. Keep an eraser nearby. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

To pacify your external conflicts, you must wage peace, first and foremost, within yourself. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Some people engage in retail therapy, buying new things to make themselves feel more secure, and others engage in knowledge therapy, amassing new ideas to make themselves feel like they know something. We consume for comfort. We rely on certainty to shield us from the pain of confusion. The truth is staggering, colossal, unfathomable, so we cling to our bite-sized lies. We organize knowledge into bulleted lists and line graphs while the wisdom of the present moment sits patiently at the doors of our perception. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

When we listen to ourselves with callous objectivity—trying to diagnose and eradicate our problems with effective solutions—this “listening” rarely works. Think of the people who treat you this way: those who can’t see beyond their labels and judgments of you. Those who only “listen” for long enough to decide which advice to give you. It feels horrible. This same attitude prevents us from hearing our inner conversations. When we feel like someone has an agenda, we resist. Trying to fix ourselves while pretending to love ourselves doesn’t work. We don’t heal through objectification. We heal through understanding. We need to feel appreciated by the people who help us—ourselves included. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

There is a difference between helping people and helping people buy. There is a difference between showing people their potential and selling them on a dream. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Think of a wave: it washes onto the shore, and then it rolls back. Likewise, each of your activities has a backside of stillness. To be with people, you must be alone. To listen, you need silence. To exercise, you need rest. You do not need to inflict rest, silence, or aloneness. You can simply surrender to your existing urges for these essential actions. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

There's a reason it takes multi-million dollar budgets to sell carbonated drinks, while water sells without a marketing team. The truth endures. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

You do not need to wait for someone else to notice your talents before nourishing them. You do not need others to accept you to feel accepted. You do not need to wait. You can begin, at any moment, to work on noticing, nourishing, and accepting yourself. You can work on being a better friend to your reflection. You can start listening to yourself like you wish other people would. You can become curious about who you are. You can begin to learn the language of your mind and body so that you can decode it, understand it, speak it. You can work on understanding yourself, instead of always trying to make yourself into someone else. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Once you feed your hunger, you'll better understand your symptoms of starvation. This can lead to profound self-forgiveness. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

What if you allowed your childhood curiosity to re-emerge from underneath layers of adult know-how? Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Throughout your life, you have embraced some things, and you have abandoned others. You have been assertive, and you have been calm. You have listened, and you have spoken. So you already know how to hold on, let go, speak up, shut up, light up, and calm down. You don’t need anyone to tell you what to do. You can figure that out for yourself—if only you can unleash your wild curiosity about the mysteries within you. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

When we’re trying to fill a love-sized hole, it doesn’t matter what we’re trying to stuff into it: drugs, money, alcohol, approval, sex. If it’s not love, it won’t truly satisfy us. We’ll keep wanting more and more. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva.

To find the answers to your questions, you must break free of your assumptions. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Each moment of self-honesty builds intimacy, trust, and compassion. The more you look, the more you’ll love. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Masks are addictive. On every bus stop billboard and during every commercial break, we see images of who we should be. These, in turn, lead us to ask the wallet-emptying question: 'How can I become what I should be?' We try. We buy. But every time we think we’ve reached perfection, it eludes us again. Every time we think we’ve crafted the perfect mask, it cracks. We see a so-called flaw. We see a so-called flawless person. We panic. We buy, buy, buy. We spend all our earnings and energy on trying to fix ourselves—trying to get our fix of worthiness. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

A blade of grass sticks straight up. When the wind comes, it bends. The stronger the wind, the more it bends. When the wind eases, however, the blade straightens. It continues by returning, goes forward by coming back. Like this, you can allow your mind to fill with ideas, and then allow it to empty of them. This quote is by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Once you feed your hunger, you will better understand your symptoms of starvation. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

If you plant a hundred seeds in poor soil and nothing sprouts, you may cry at the failure. If, instead, you plant those seeds in fertile soil, some will still fail, but you will not cry because you will be too busy nursing the seeds that have sprouted. Self-awareness is that fertile soil. It does not remove failure; it helps you cultivate your potential despite it. Then, you can stop dubbing yourself a poor gardener. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

In the end, the most important thing I have learned is this: my inner experience, even when it shows up to me in the plainest English, is always open for interpretation. My mind already translates my self-communications—with or without my consent. And I can choose to be an active participant in that translation process. I can choose to understand instead of pretending to know. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

When you love people, you are curious about who they are, what they think, and how they feel. You watch them closely, wondering about their experience and what you can do to make it more enjoyable. You feel compassion for their pain and seek to make it more bearable. You are eager to learn the unique language of their existence. You want to understand them, inspire them, heal them. What if you could look at yourself this way? Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Like a cat left in a room with balls of yarn, maybe you have twisted yourself into a mishmash. This was never your fault, but now, it is your responsibility to untangle this multicoloured mess. It’s a big, frustrating job. As you try to unwind one string, it drags dozens of others along with it. But bit by bit, piece by piece, you will make progress. You will unravel. You will heal. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself

Blame is a cigarette. It soothes your mind and your muscles when you take a drag on it. It feels like it helps. If you do this for long enough, often enough, you forget that it helps only because it takes away the same stress it creates. Blame is an addiction. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

Hope for the future lies in each of us looking within. By learning to feed your hunger, you can overcome the tempting illusions all around you. By discovering who you are, you can stop basing your self-image solely on other people’s ideas about you. By connecting to your inner strength, you can stop cycling between idealistic illusions and self-hating disillusionment. By taking responsibility for yourself, you can stop relying on others to take responsibility for you. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

To know yourself, you must sacrifice the illusion that you already do. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

What looks like a flaw to one person looks like radiant beauty to another. What is embarrassing to one is authentic to the next. What is funny to some is offensive to others. For everything you want to fix about yourself, there is someone who will accept it. And for everything you love about yourself, there is someone who would want you to change it. Quote by Vironika Tugaleva from her book The Art of Talking to Yourself.

LISTEN NOW: Inconvenient Emotions (Sexy Spoken Word)

LISTEN NOW: Change of Plans (Spoken Word)

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