- Use the present moment as an anchor when returning to places of gravity to protect yourself.
- Depression makes seeing beyond the pain difficult. It could make us forget about the people around us.
- We can still be happy for people whose lives are changed by an idea we don’t agree with.
- For an idea to take hold of me, it has to be honest and true. This is more important than beauty.
- To stay among the JWs could’ve been the easier path. I would still have these people I once loved. But depression has already broken the parchment curtain. I can’t unsee what I have seen. To stay in my old religion is to live inside a beautiful house standing on termite-infested wood.
- I am a kissa, a portal for people to experience something they long for. My words, writings, photographs, actions, and, more importantly, my presence bring the experience I want others to have, one that isn’t always readily available in the world out there.
- One day I want to encounter the people I left from my past not hiding but being my most authentic self.
- Instead of anger, I now feel a genuine curiosity about the people I left behind in my past.
- Our beliefs shouldn’t be what prevent us from communion. They should be what makes us thirsty for connection even with people who are different from us.
- Walking back to places from my past triggers emotions that inform me where I am in my healing journey.
- Walking back to places from my past facilitates incorporation. It is only after incorporation can I say that my convalescence is done.
- Joining a political org in college after leaving the JWs was my way of finding refuge after leaving the hearth.
- What makes me feel warm is engaging with existence, i.e., seeing how ordinary objects and events are portals to existential questions and emotions.
- For theory to inspire me, I have to extract the poetry out of it.