By Jessica Anne Pressler LCSW

After 58-plus years of living and learning, not fully living and learning, learning from my hospice patients and others, I have come up with some thoughts on life.

1. Always be open to changing your mind. Continue to learn, grow, and be receptive to the possibility of thinking differently.

2. You will NEVER get time back again.

3. Most people are complex. 

4. Narcissists, especially those high on the spectrum, are not complex and very predictable, and it helps to know that. 

5. Good friends are to be treasured, and you don’t need many.

6. Friends who treat you poorly and who gossip about you are not friends.

7. Friends come in different forms... close friends you would do anything for and who you can trust with your life, friends to party with, friends to meet to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries with, Fake friends but know your limitations, friends you bond on at a particular time in your life,(like the death of a loved one or the birth of a loved one,) friends that come with other friends, friends you tolerate, social media friends, friends you love, friends with benefits and so on...

8. You can heal your inner child.

9. Trust is the only way to true intimacy, even with yourself.

10. If you are a recipient of abuse, it is never ever your fault.

11. Its never too late.

12. Keep learning, keep growing.

13. There is no right way or wrong way to feel.

14. You can have 12 witnesses and 12 truths.

15. You need a strong foundation to build a healthy relationship, but you can go back with hard work and the right crew and repair and build again.

16. You are never too old or too anything to achieve what you want to.

17. Even if you empathize with the person who is abusing you, even if they had a painful childhood, it is NOT okay for them to abuse you. It is okay, and even advisable to put up boundaries and even walk away. It is NEVER okay to abuse you. Please remember you are not their therapist.

18. Be mindful of how you feel and trust it. 

19. Do not ignore red flags.

20. Journal helps you see things more objectively and gain insight. 

21. Ask for help from people you trust, friends, and professionals, and accept help from others.

22. When helping someone, let them choose their goals.

23. Be around people that make you happy.

24. Be around people that you can be authentic.

25. You are never stuck.

26. If you are a prisoner of your childhood programming, you can set yourself free, and in doing so, you can prevent it being passed on to your children. If you set yourself free after you passed it on, you can still teach them and undo the potential damage and generational programming.

27. Be honest with yourself and others.

28. You can be co-dependent in romantic relationships and not in other aspects of your life, and there is no shame in this. There is no shame in any of your childhood programming. It is not your fault.

29. There is no shame in having a Traitor Within. These patterns were set when your inner child experienced trauma and childhood messaging. Most people have a Traitor Within and most of us can conquer her, him or them.

30. How many social workers does it take to change a light bulb? One, but the lightbulb must want to be changed.

31. Being nurturing, validating, kind, compassionate, loving, non-judgement, forgiving, and accepting of self and others can help heal and change the world.

32. Self-care is not selfish. You will be a better you.

33. Butterfly effect.

34. Ideally, take care of your own “stuff” before having kids; if not, and that’s most of us, then as you grow continue to teach them with modeling and words from your growth. 

35. Ideally, take care of your “stuff” before entering romantic relationships; if not, if you pick well, you can grow together. 

36. Be authentic.

37. Be mindful of how you feel.

38. When two people disagree, it is at least 70 percent old childhood wounds at play and less than 30 percent the disagreement at hand.

39. How we see the world is subjective. Difficult for any of us to be completely objective.

40. Don’t believe everything you think.

41. If you would die tomorrow, what would you wish you had done differently? Can you make the necessary changes now? People’s regrets are often what they didn’t do or say and about missed time and not about missed money or things.

42. Tomorrow is never promised.

43. There are people who use fear to control you.

44. Your fear controls you.

45. Yes, there are evil people out there. Some people would destroy you to serve their needs, like narcissistic supply or worse. It took most of my life to believe this. There is nothing you can do to make them change. Best thing you can do is set boundaries to protect yourself, ideally remove yourself from their life. 

46. It’s okay to make mistakes, but learn from them.

47. Your Traitor Within, your inner saboteur, is created by your childhood wounds, and trauma, by people you have trusted, especially in your childhood. These patterns have become part of you, but they do not define you, and you can confront, heal, and even conquer the traitor within.

48. It is never too late to feel loved, understood, validated and it’s always healing. 

49. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

50. Every step is an accomplishment.

51. Two steps back doesn’t mean you won’t have five steps forward the next day. Try not to get discouraged.

52. You deserve to be loved, adored, believed, and validated. 

53. You can parent yourself at any point in your life.

54. You do not have to be exhausted in your relationships.

55. You do not have to always fix everything.

56. Your traitor within was formed without your awareness, but awareness is the first step in healing.

57. Don’t rush through life...it goes by really quickly, and yes, the older you get, it appears to fly by

58. Loving yourself, really loving your authentic self, is liberating, and you can teach others by example.

59. Creating healthy boundaries from those who can hurt you is loving yourself.

60. Loving yourself is not selfish.

61. Loving yourself allows you to truly love others.

62. The Law of attraction is real. 

63. Love and compassion make the world go around.

64. Listen to others. You will never learn if you only listen to yourself speak.

65. The world is astounding, and we have so much to learn from it and from others. Nature is awe-inspiring. Love is incredible. Hatred and selfishness will destroy it all. 

66. Yes. There are other life forms out there

67. Hatred and prejudice stunts growth and creates pain.

68. There is so much we do not understand. Be open, be the sponge you were as a child before some grown-up squelched it. Be a child again. Look at the world with pure awe, pure love, pure hope, pure innocence and, just be.

69. To repeat.... LOVE AND COMPASSION MAKES THE WORLD GO AROUND

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Please seek consultation by an appropriate healthcare provider.

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Call National Suicidal Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 to talk to someone 24/7 if needed. Call National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 to talk to someone 24/7 if needed.

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