Quotes by Vironika Tugaleva

You’ll never know who you are unless you shed who you pretend to be.

All love begins with the love within.

What if each time you experienced an emotion, you acknowledged it, accepted it, and became curious about its message for you (instead of trying to make it go away or make it last longer)? Imagine how this could change your life. Imagine how heard, loved, and honoured you would feel if you really listened to yourself.

There is no great reward for being emotionally withdrawn, no pity prize for bottling your frustration. No one is coming to congratulate your chronic self-repression. By opening up, maybe you will inconvenience some people. Maybe you will trigger some conflict. Maybe you will be rejected, criticized, judged. Everything comes with a price and everything has its compensation. Authenticity may require pain, but it also opens the doors to joy, creativity, self-respect, empathy. Self-repression, on the other hand, costs you all the beauty of the world in exchange for a prison of comfort. Is it really worth it? Isnt it time to break free?

There is no way to genuinely, powerfully, truly love yourself while crafting a mask of perfection. I know, you know, we all know—its hard to let your pimples and your flaws be seen. Its hard to stumble and bumble. Its hard to not know the right things to do or say. Its hard to not look like TV.Sometimes, its really hard for me to be the awkward mess that I am when Im authentic, instead of having runway authenticity—all natural, but flawless. But every time I allow that to be okay, not just around myself but around others—I affirm something to myself. I affirm, to myself more than anyone else, that I am lovable and acceptable unconditionally. I affirm that its okay to take on and take in all the flavours and hues of human experience, and not just the ones that are acceptable in this culture, in this time, in this place.And that kind of acceptance, that kind of love—thats the kind of love that creates miracles. Thats the kind of love I really need. Thats the kind of love that makes approval taste like cardboard.

Compassion is essential, but it’s not a substitute for self-expression, or self-respect, or self-compassion. Emotional self-care is also essential, but gently soothing our wounds does not replace communicating about them.

Apathy is, too often, a result of overexposure to stressful, highly emotional situations. To rekindle empathy, sometimes we need some space. Its okay to walk away so that you can feel love for someone again. Sometimes for a moment. Sometimes forever.

No ones approval is enough to make up for a lack of self-love, which is really a lack of self-awareness.When we feel a desire to be loved, it isnt other peoples love we need. Its our own relationship with love that were longing for, our own awareness of being interconnected with others, our own sense of the magic of our own interwoven existence. To seek the fulfillment of this desire in others approval is a losing battle. It will never be enough. No one can compliment you enough to supplement for the acceptance that you need from your own self, in each moment. Acceptance for your struggles and your talents. Acceptance for your humanity. Celebration of that humanity.Love is an inside job.

The less approval I get, the more chances I have to develop a relationship with my inner sense of approval. Thankless environments are actually useful for this. They help me discover my own thankfulness and my own self-appreciation.

One of the most difficult things I ever did was learn to support myself through my whole range of emotional experiences without running away.

Be real. Be authentic. Be yourself, whatever the emotional cost. Pain goes away, while regret over a life lived trying to be a plastic version of yourself does not.

We are all searching for love, some at the bottom of a bottle, some at the casino, some in the eyes of a new lover. The more we search outside ourselves, we more desperate we become. We suffer not because loves unavailable, but because we are not looking in the right place.

We try so hard to make ourselves lovable, and yet each layer of this mask puts another wall around us – a wall that keeps love out.

Being passive is not the same as being peaceful. If you arent doing what you know, in your heart, you want to do, you are NOT going with the flow. You are going against the flow. Your reactions, emotions, desires, and talents are all part of the flow of life. Ignoring them is passive resistance. Let yourself go.

When we stop looking for someone to complete us, we find completion in ourselves.

When your own approval means more than the approval of others, that is self-love.

Authenticity is not the search for uniqueness. An oak tree does not try to become an oak tree. A cactus does not try to become a cactus. All living things simply reach for nourishment - they reach for sun, reach for water, reach their roots deeper into the ground. By being open to receiving what they need, they become unique effortlessly. So let yourself fall open. Forget about crafting yourself a unique personality. Just allow. Allow in love. Allow pain. Allow desire. Allow learning. Allow healing. Allow frustration. Allow uncertainty. Allow yourself to experience what you must experience and learn what you need to learn, so that your uniqueness can emerge organically.

When you begin to walk your own journey, to have your own unique conversation, you will naturally stop feeling envious of others. Not because you’ll realize your desires are different from theirs, but because they are so similar. You’ll discover the difference between doing well and pretending to do well, between being happy and pretending to be happy, between healthy relationships and staged ones. You’ll see just how many obstacles lie on any path. You’ll realize that it takes the same amount of effort to work on building up the quality of the conversations in your life as it does to broadcast to the public, constantly, that those conversations are already perfect. You can either build up the mask or build up the authentic self. And you, brave and beautiful you, will make the right choice eventually. Be it now or on your deathbed. We all realize soon enough.

Self-love is not the process of ignoring things, paying attention to fewer flaws or forcing yourself to look away from the parts of you that you perceive as ugly or unwanted. Self-love is the process of expanding your awareness, of seeing those flaws and imperfections alongside the incredible potential of the universe flowing within you, alongside the eternal truth of life flowing within your veins in each second, alongside the flickers of creativity and opportunity present within each moment of your existence. Like this, the imperfections persist, but only as lovable quirks, like a bad doorknob on the front door of a cottage in paradise, like a few thorns on a beautiful rose, like a cloud in a sunset. Like this, what was once unwanted becomes essential, memorable, humbling.

The more youve struggled to heal and love yourself, the more inspiring your story will be to others when you come out the other side full of triumph, awareness, and honour. Dont give up. Your struggle today is the source of your wisdom tomorrow.