Jamie Varon Quotes

You deserve to love your life so much that it doesn’t matter who affirms or denies you.

The Only Way You Can Control Everything Is If You Fuck It All Up

Excuses are a great way to be on the sidelines of your own life.

You are as you are until you're not. You change when you want to change. You put your ideas into action in the timing that is best. That's just how it happens. And what I think we all need more than anything is this: permission to be wherever the fuck we are when we're there. You're not a robot. You can't just conjure up motivation when you don't have it. Sometimes you're going through something. Sometimes life has happened. Life! Remember life? Yeah, it teaches you things and sometimes makes you go the long way around for your biggest lessons. You don't get to control everything. You can wake up at 5 a.m. every day until you're tired and broken, but if the words or the painting or the ideas don't want to come to fruition, they won't. You can show up every day to your best intentions, but if it's not the time, it's just not the fucking time. You need to give yourself permission to be a human being.

Once you start to opt out of a society that does not want you to be happy or valued as you are, it’s like waking up from a bad dream.

Maybe confidence doesn’t come from being the best or thinnest or prettiest or most perfect, but just from showing up for yourself over and over.

Opting out looks like having your own value system. Ending the compulsion to compare. Loving yourself. Caring about what you think about yourself, not what other people think about you.

the bravest thing you can do is support people and celebrate their success with as much excitement as it deserves. It’s funny, the more you celebrate others, the more you celebrate yourself.

We often forget that we are as we are until we're not. We are the same until we're changed. We can move that a bit further by putting into place healthy habits and to show up to our lives in a way that fosters growth, but we can't game timing. Timing is the one thing that we often forget to surrender to. Things are dark until they're not. Most of our unhappiness stems from the belief that our lives should be different than they are. We believe we have control -- and our self-loathing and self-hatred comes from this idea that we should be able to change our circumstances, that we should be richer or hotter or better or happier. While self-responsibility is empowering, it can often lead to this resentment and bitterness that none of us need to be holding within us. We have to put in our best efforts and then give ourselves permission to let whatever happens to happen--and to not feel so directly and vulnerably tied to outcomes. Opportunities often don't show up in the way we think they will. You don't need more motivation or inspiration to create the life you want. You need less shame around the idea that you're not doing your best. You need to stop listening to people who are in vastly different life circumstances and life stages than you tell you that you're just not doing or being enough. You need to let timing do what it needs to do. You need to see lessons where you see barriers. You need to understand that what's right now becomes inspiration later. You need to see that wherever you are now is what becomes your identity later. Sometimes we're not yet the people we need to be in order to contain the desires we have. Sometimes we have to let ourselves evolve into the place where we can allow what we want to transpire.

I’ve realized that another person’s greatness takes nothing from my own. And that the bravest thing you can do is support people and celebrate their success with as much excitement as it deserves.

Yes, the things that others think, say, or do will sometimes hurt you–until they do not anymore. What will get you from here to there most quickly is total honesty–being willing to assert, acknowledge, and declare exactly how you feel about a thing. Say your truth–kindly, but fully and completely. Live your truth, gently, but totally and consistently. Change your truth easily and quickly when your experience brings you new clarity.

BEING RADICALLY CONTENT starts with emotionally opting out of the world. Unlearning the value system of a harsh and power-hungry society—and creating a new internal value system where you are affirmed, seen, worthy, loved.

People say you can lose yourself in love, but they don’t tell you that you can lose each other, too, that you can kiss without feeling and you can have sex without connecting and you can convince yourself that the love you have is not enough of the things you need. You can be alone while together.

Most optimists are not born that way. They are created. When the world asked them to harden, they softened. When they experienced pain, they vowed not to give that pain to others. When they understood the lineage of trauma, they healed instead of continuing the pattern. Optimists are not people who have never had a hard day or a hard season or a collection of hard years. Optimists are those that have walked through the fire and decided that love, hope, resiliency, and compassion are lighter to carry. For most people, their optimism is hard-won. Fought for. An act of brave resistance in a harsh, demanding, chaotic world. ~ Jamie Varon

Sometimes the novel is not ready to be written because you haven't met the inspiration for your main character yet. Sometimes you need two more years of life experience before you can make your masterpiece into something that will feel real and true and raw to other people. Sometimes you're not falling in love because whatever you need to know about yourself is only knowable through solitude. Sometimes you haven't met your next collaborator. Sometimes your sadness encircles you because, one day, it will be the opus upon which you build your life. We all know this: Our experience cannot always be manipulated. Yet, we don't act as though we know this truth. We try so hard to manipulate and control our lives, to make creativity into a game to win, to shortcut success because others say they have, to process emotions and uncertainty as if these are linear journeys. You don't get to game the system of your life. You just don't. You don't get to control every outcome and aspect as a way to never give in to the uncertainty and unpredictability of something that's beyond what you understand. It's the basis of presence: to show up as you are in this moment and let that be enough.

There are certain women who seem to effortlessly embody what a woman is “supposed” to be. Lithe, elegant limbs. Shiny, long, perfectly tousled hair. Charming, but not overbearing or loud. Polite, soft voice. Coy, sexy, but not overt. Thin. Always thin. And you start to feel like if you don’t fit that ideal - if you age out of it or if your body puts you on the fringe of it, or your face does not have the exact symmetry - then you’ll never have the exact life you want. And then you start to accept less, because you can’t become the ideal.

We have been taught to believe that there is something shameful in not knowing, but, in fact, it’s one of the most powerful spaces to stand in.

We love our facades, but not our vulnerabilities.

The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.

If you interpret every difficult experience as a reason to not try, or have hope, or not believe in people and love, that's what life will become.

This makes me think of my mom and Margot. One who chose the traditional path, the other an unconventional one. They were both trying to survive in their own way. I wish they had been able to see that and reconcile their differences.

All you have to do is stay. And when you feel the urge to flee in fear, you don't. You stand firm. And you choose courage. You keep choosing courage over fear, until it feels natural. Until you realize you're the bravest person in the room.

I thought that I had to wait until I didn't feel afraid. I always thought that fear meant inadequacy, that confident people just feel capable all the time. But maybe I've had it all wrong...Maybe the fear never goes away. Maybe what changes is your response to it. Maybe you just keep choosing to be brave, every single day.

She got disappointed and life didn't always go her way, but she kept going. She kept trying. She didn't let herself get defeated for too long. And there is no doubt in my mind that you are stronger than your fear. Margot made a choice to live boldly, because she knew at any point she only had two choices: back away in fear or choose courage.

When Margot decided to choose courage, a funny thing happened: she always got braver. Fear doesn't like boldness. And regardless of what decisions you've made in the past, you can choose again. Choose courage.

That doesn't mean you won't doubt yourself or be afraid. Margot was always afraid when she took a leap of faith, but she just didn't let that stop her. She always said it's not about being fearless - its about doing it afraid.

She always said it's not about being fearless - its about doing it afraid.

How do I tap into that courage? All you have to do is stay. And when you feel the urge to flee in fear, you don't. You stand firm.

Life can continue to surprise you right up until the end, if you're brave enough to take risks.

I have been living in service of my fear for too long. And I did it again. Cowered in the face of it.

I need to be the main character in my own life. For good this time. No matter what external circumstances might get me down. All it takes is one loving and brave step at a time.

Yeah, I feel like, as women, we have to choose between two different dire4ctions to make it in this world, either we try to split from convention, set ourselves apart, break the rules. or we accept the rules and play along in order to make sure those doors open. And I can't blame any woman for whatever path she chooses.

Life is all about where you focus. I've been through a lot of tragedy and pain but I can't let it define me. I want to take chances, even if the outcome is uncertain or I could get hurt - or left at the dam alter.

It's so frustrating that all we want is to be understood and yet it sometimes feel impossible to find the people who do.

If you interpret every difficult experience as a reason to not try, or have hope, or not believe in people and love, that's what life will become. You'll look for evidence for why something isn't working for you. I choose to stay open, I don't want to spend my life afraid and guarded.

I guess confidence really is attractive.

I've realized that another person's greatness takes nothing from my own. And that the bravest thing you can do is support people and celebrate their success with as much excitement as it deserves. It's funny, the more you celebrate others, the more you celebrate yourself.

You can't think your way into loving yourself or feeling confident. So maybe I need to keep making one bold decision after another. Maybe I need to act in loving ways.

How many summer days I missed out on - it's too many to count. I hate that I still care more about how other people perceive my body, rather than how I feel about my body. I want so desperately to be someone who is unapologetic, who loves herself, who doesn't have to analyze every moment. I want to be be bold, adventurous - to say yes to life.

We are allowed to exist. Exactly as we are. And grow and evolve. And recognize our talents and appreciate them without waiting to be appreciated by others. That’s not selfish. It’s vital. It’s how to stop just surviving—and start really thriving.

What if you simply built a lovely life that makes you feel happy, that brings you joy, that is generative and supportive?

For me, the pursuit is in having the freest life. The most expressed. The least held back. I want to be healed. I want to be radically content and radically satisfied. I don’t want this world to tell me my worth. I want to derive my worth from inside my own soul. I’m not trying to live the best life that people can aspire to. I am not here to trade in jealousy for profit. I want to be free. And I want you to be free, too.

But, my life is not a focus group.

What if you realized your life is likely a lot closer to your ideal than you ever thought?

That’s why when you start loving yourself, you need to confront all the ways in which you have betrayed yourself first. There

If you interpret every difficult experience as a reason to not try, or have hope, or not believe in people and love, that’s what life will become. You’ll look for evidence for why something isn’t working out for you. I choose to stay open. I don’t want to spend my life afraid and guarded.

Creating art is a meditation on self-belief. Do you feel worthy to be seen? To be heard? The task of writing is incredibly daunting if you do not.

Isn’t that we all crave? To feel alive? What we think of when we chase happiness is actually not happiness at all. We crave aliveness. We crave the feeling of being completely within our lives. We crave the heart-stopping surprise moments that we never expected. We crave the opportunity to go down a path that leads us to something more beautiful than we ever imagined. This is what we truly desire. And, it’s not a straight line there.

Self-doubt can be an ally. This is because it serves as an indicator of aspiration.

Your life is happening now. Don’t you dare waste it.

But I’ve realized that another person’s greatness takes nothing from my own. And that the bravest thing you can do is support people and celebrate their success with as much excitement as it deserves.

for permission or to look a certain way. Just show up and try.