The only thing that separates joy and sorrow are two thin lines. Like the moon to the Earth, one revolves around the other, living side-by-side in constant juxtaposition. Whether we like it or not, happiness and sadness need each other to survive.

That is perhaps the paradox of living. To know love we must also know hate. To know light we must also peer into the dark side. To know boundlessness we must learn what it feels like to be trapped inside.

We get to learn these lessons every day, if we so choose to accept them. Or we can spend our entire lives fighting the reason we are here.

It may feel like dancing with fire to step over those carefully laid boundaries that are meant to keep us warm and dry. But what they often end up doing is imprisoning us with the fear out of which they were created. We are then no longer safe – we are just comfortably numb.

A good friend of mine admitted that she listens to her inner critic far more than her inner voice.

“What would your life be like if you were to believe that angel inside you?” I asked her. My friend’s eyes lit up for just a moment. I saw that angel crying to get out from underneath the thumb of her controlling internal monster. Its wings fluttered across her irises, then disappeared into the darkness once again.

Every day is a new dawn to draw closer to our truest selves. Allow yourself to look at your greatest fears for they are a part of you too. Shower them with love as you grant them permission to stand beside your greatest dreams. Two thin lines and a chance to truly live – tears and laughter, understanding and confusion, success and failure, arrivals and departures.

Everything.