As you know, I’m a journaller. A reader who underlines.
You’ll find no unmarked copies on my bookshelf, I draw stars, write in the margins, add arrows.
I underline lines that feel like little lanterns, uplifting lines that find me at exactly the right moment.
Here are just some of the treasures I found this year.
1. Love Embraces My Whole Story
This year, I was able to bring more of myself into the frame.
What I mean is, I finally began to accept the parts of my story I’d been trying to edit out.
When I read this line, it made me see that everything that has happened, the complicated, the unfinished, the wounded, and the becoming, is part of my unique story. And that Love has the capacity to hold what I’ve spent years trying to make smaller.
2. Let Life Be Willed Through You
I underlined this on a day I felt like everything depended on my effort. It reminded me that I didn’t need to force anything.
I wondered if maybe life has an intelligence of its own, and my job is simply to stay open, to let myself be guided. More sailing, less rowing.
3. Slow is Smooth, and Smooth is Fast
A reminder that rushing only creates more mistakes, more tension, more detours. But moving steadily, with clarity and intention? That’s what actually carries us forward. Slowness isn’t failure, it’s wisdom. The fear of missing out is real. These words helped me see it was time to let that fear go.
4. Bless Yourself
As you know, I believe in the power of goodwill. After reading Benedictus by John O’Donohue, I’ve come to understand how blessing, spoken genuinely, can impact us in body, mind, and soul.
I’m always blessing and praying for my kids, my husband, my parents… but this year I was reminded that I can speak kindness over my own life too. I can bless the parts of me that are tired, hopeful, learning, and brave. Sometimes the blessing you need most is the one you give yourself.
5. Start With the Assumed Abundance of It
I read this and immediately felt something expand inside me. What if instead of beginning from doubt and lack (not enough time, not enough confidence, not enough talent) I began from abundance? What if I assumed there was enough, and that I was allowed to show up fully?
These words changed everything.
6. The Person You Are Becoming Is More Important Than the Person You Have Been
This line felt like a deep exhale. It reminded me that I’m not bound to old stories, old patterns, or old versions of myself. Becoming is allowed. Change isn’t a betrayal of who I was or who I imagined I’d be at this age. Growth, in its most unruly, unexpected ways, is allowed. There’s nothing disloyal about outgrowing who you used to be. This is something I needed to settle.
7. Our Wholeheartedness Is Itself a Compass
When I’m divided, conflicted, or performing, I get lost.
But when I’m wholehearted, honest, aligned, and present, I feel a kind of calm I can’t replicate any other way, and I generally create my best work.
Wholeheartedness not only means enthusiasm to do something, it also means freedom from hypocrisy or false pretense, and it is that freedom that opens the door to better decisions, better boundaries, and better art.
8. You Can’t Refine What You Have Not Started
Perfection can be paralysing. And truthfully, after having a little break from writing, I didn’t really know how to start again, mostly because I was afraid of writing something terrible. But this line reminded me that clarity only comes through doing. You can’t edit a blank page. You can’t deepen a path you never step onto. Start messy. Refine later. That’s how everything beautiful begins.
And that’s how I’m starting 2026, messy, which is really just another way of saying full of great potential.