“I really looked at myself and plucked those thorns out one by one. It was grueling. I kept plucking them - painfully - until I finally realized there was a rose there all along…”

“My shell eventually became so hard that I found myself covered in self doubt, self judgment, and just overall worry about myself and everything around me…”

“For the umpteenth day in a row I woke up and thought about the truth and what I needed to do about it…”