Brianna Wiest is one of the most prolific, profound, and popular writers on the internet (and bookstores). Her self-improvement books 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think and the Mountain Is You are read across the globe and are routinely some of the best-selling books on Amazon. And her poetry books, Ceremony, and Salt Water are beloved indie classics.
Brianna’s latest book came out January, 18th 2021 as a surprise drop via Thought Catalog Books. You can find it on Shop Catalog here. Or Amazon here. It’s called When You’re Ready, This Is How You Heal and as the cover suggests, it’s follow up to her 101 Essays book.
Here are some of the best quotes from the book.
For when you feel behind…
Everything that is meant for you will feel like a deep exhale, as though you are returning home to a place you forgot existed.
Brianna Wiest
For when you’re afraid to be fully yourself:
Your first and most crucial task is your commitment to your own becoming. It is from this garden that all else is harvested. Your first purpose is just to be here. To be weird and ordinary and exceptional. To think and feel and know and wonder. To build yourself into a person you are proud to be, even if nobody else is clapping.
Brianna Wiest
For the times you can’t let go:
Letting go is as effortless as an exhale. You do it all the time. There are thousands of things you’ve simply re-leased into the night, that ended the moment you fell asleep and your eyes opened again in the morning. There are so many thoughts, fears, beliefs, items, relationships, choices, decisions, feelings that you have simply let go. I hope you will recognize that release is part of your system, it’s not something you have to force yourself to do. It’s something you practice with the little things, so when the big things come, you’re ready.
Brianna Wiest
For the moments you feel the need to be perfect:
I hope you learn how to see your evolution not as a linear ascent into perfection, but an unpacking of why you might want to perfect yourself in the first place. What feels so broken? And who taught you it was that way?
Brianna Wiest
For your inner child:
You have to start being kind to yourself. Kind in the way that you’re kind to a child, to someone or something so innocent and endlessly deserving of your affection and praise.
Brianna Wiest
For the people-pleasers:
There is not just one version of you that exists. To some, you are the beauty standard. To others, you are easily overlooked. To some, you are a genius at your craft. To others, you are irrelevant. To some, you are an incredible friend. To others, you are a complete stranger. To some, you are a life partner. To others, you are not someone they’d even date. To some, you are a teacher. To others, you are a student. To some, you are a guide. To others, you are a beginner. To some, you are a shining light. To others, you reveal their darkness. The reality is that you exist in so many different forms and images and projections—and yet, the only one that is ever really going to matter is the way you see yourself. Allow this knowing to free you. Allow it to help you see that maybe there is more dimension, more contrast, more nuance, and more goodness within you than you have ever allowed your-self to believe.
Brianna Wiest
For the overthinkers:
You can live within the questions. Life doesn’t start when we’re set on the answers, it unfolds within the questions themselves.
Brianna Wiest
For the self-abandoners:
And maybe in the end, the kindest possible thing you could do for yourself is to know that there is nothing that holds us back more than the important words that went unspoken, the deep instincts that went unfelt, the callings that went unanswered.
Brianna Wiest
For those who believe healing is a destination…
Healing is not so much a chapter in your story but changing the way you write the entire book.
Brianna Wiest
For those who have trouble accepting the love they deserve…
Broken love is not something you must endure in order to earn something better.
Brianna Wiest
For anyone who has lost their hope…
I hope you will not allow this life to make you bitter. I hope you will not fight for your limitations more often than you do your potential. I hope you will never stop believing that a miracle is right around the corner, because it always is. I hope you will know that the will-ingness to believe in what may be is often the very path that brings it all forward.
Brianna Wiest
