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I am slowly reducing the number of toxic people in my world. I am reminding myself not to settle out of loneliness.

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In my determination to be empathetic to and accepted by others, I realized that I had completely lost myself.

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Complacency: Anything luke-warm, half-assed, or even nice but not amazing. With one life to live, these things can be thrown away to make room for something better.

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But what about us? Where are our expectations?

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Your core needs do not change in correlation with who you are interacting with.

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Real self-respect is knowing what’s worth standing up for, but it’s also knowing that being confrontational rarely gets you what you want.

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Putting myself first is not selfish. Looking in the mirror and recognizing my beauty is not shallow. Cutting people out of my world who don’t deserve a second of my time is not bitchy.

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You own your faults. You aren’t afraid to share your weaknesses or admit that you have them because you know you are so much more than what you lack.

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What makes a strong woman is her ability to control the narrative of what is happening in the relationship. While the other girl allows a man to control exactly how she acts or responds.

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Her goals and dreams are what motivate her to get up in the morning. She needs someone who is going to respect what she does, respect what she wants to do and be there cheering her on when she does it.