Quotes by Vironika Tugaleva

Once trust is built, distance cannot kill it. Time and space alone cannot destroy authentic connection.

I believe that the best leadership is loud authenticity. That is what the world needs now. We don’t need more plastic, Photoshooped perfection. I don’t want people to look at me and wish they could be me. I want people to look at me and see their own potential. I want people to be more accepting of their own failures, imperfections, and struggles because they watch me accept of my own.

Compassion and communication are both incredibly important in relationships, but most of us use these at the wrong time. If we communicate, its only in times of conflict, allowing repressed emotions and unsaid worries form into their worst phrasings. If we show compassion, its only in good times, when were feeling good about one another and dont feel triggered or attacked. What if we changed our approach? What if we showed compassion in conflict—taking the time to listen, understand, help each other release pent-up emotions? And what if we communicated in good times—taking the time to talk about patterns we fall into, triggers we both have, and how we can work together to break our cycles? Then, we would stop helplessly dancing the same old tango of mutual misunderstanding. Then, we could work on giving one another room to feel, to love, and to grow.

The biggest mistake people make when trying to be authentic is just that: they try. They see these role models of what an authentic person is supposed to look like or act like, and they try to emulate that. Authenticity isnt about what things appear to be. Its about allowing things to be what they are. Authenticity is about getting away from hiding, from wearing a mask, from always asking, How should I act? What should I say? What will people think? That includes asking, How should an authentic person act? What would a genuine person say?Being authentic isnt about making yourself a certain way. Its not even about finding out what you really enjoy as opposed to what other people enjoy, or who you really are as opposed to who other people are. Authenticity is allowing your likes, dislikes, personality, appearance, hobbies, and beliefs to be fluid, to change, to evolve as you learn, grow, and experience the world.At its core, authenticity is the practice of surrendering the tiresome task of keeping up appearances and taking up of the lifetime work of allowing what is already within you to come out while you remove as many internal and external obstacles as possible.And who knows what will spill out of you if you just allow it to? Who knows what is within you awaiting recognition, awaiting permission to show itself to the world? Even you don’t know—until you try. Or, rather, until you stop trying. Until you become curious.

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 under-stand them, inspire them, heal them. What if you could look at yourself this way?

The history of your happiness is the history of your feeling connected.

To know yourself, you must first sacrifice the illusion that already you do.

A soul mate is not found. A soul mate is recognized.

Only love that continues to flow in the face of anger, blame, and indifference can be called love. All else is simply a transaction.

To love everyone unconditionally does not mean to give everyone your unconditional time. Sometimes, to love completely, we must never see someone again. This, too, is love. This is giving someone the freedom to exist and be happy, even if it must be without you.

If you do not respect your own wishes, no one else will. You will simply attract people who disrespect you as much as you do.

In some ways, we will always be different. In other ways, we will always be the same. There is always room to disagree and blame, just as there is always room to take a new perspective and empathize. Understanding is a choice.

I wanted, for so long, for someone to understand me better than I understood myself, to take control of me, to save me, to make it all better. I thought that the hardest part of a loving, mutually healing relationship would be showing my vulnerable, raw spots to a person, even though Id been hurt so many times before. This has not been the hardest part. The actual hardest part has been realizing that no one, no matter how compassionate and kind they are, will say the perfect things always. Myself included. The hardest part has been learning to communicate what I need, to hear what others need, to tell others how to tell me what they need. Intimacy takes communication. A lot of it.We all have triggers. I dont know your triggers, and you dont know mine. No matter how much I love or trust you, you cannot possibly know exactly the words I need to hear, the words I dont want to hear, and the way I like to be touched.And how strange that we expect these things of each other. How strange (and self-sabotaging) that we refuse to get into relationships and friendships with people unless they treat us in just that perfect way. Weve been raised to want fairy tales. Weve been raised to wait for flawless saviors to rescue us. But the savior isnt flawless and the savior is not coming. The savior is you. The savior is still learning. The savior is never done learning. The savior is a human being.Forget perfect. Forget flawless. And start speaking your truth. Start speaking what you want and how you want it. And start asking and listening, really listening, to what the people around you say.Maybe, then, we will stop abandoning and hurting each other. Maybe, then, theres hope for us.

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?

The important thing is for me to feel love towards my fellow human beings—and sometimes, that has to be at a distance.

Self-love is essential. Until you can learn how to feel loved in an empty room, you will not feel loved for very long in any other room.

There is no quick fix-all procedure to heal your insecurities. Like any relationship, the relationship with yourself must be built and re-built one kind, loving conversation at a time.

Sometimes love doesnt look like what we think it should look like. Sometimes its paradoxical. Sometimes we have to step outside our comfort zone. Sometimes we have to be more honest than we thought wed ever have to be or more supportive than we are taught is appropriate. When we traverse those boundaries, thats when we really understand what this whole love thing is all about. We become more than just human. We become part of the giant, beautiful ever-changing reality of life. By loving without limits, we become wise, strong, and beautiful. We become more of what we already are.

Have the courage to love yourself like you always wished someone would.

Sometimes, to love people, I must completely avoid them. Sometimes, to be strong, I must completely fall apart. Sometimes, to create, I must completely destroy.