After launching Kontently Kara and finding my writing groove, I began to feel like I was stuck in a mental rut. I came out of celebration mode that entailed lots of unhealthy eating and skipping the gym only to find myself feeling like I was just existing and not living. This is not the first time I’ve felt this way over the course of my life. It didn’t feel quite like depression and was light-years away from mania, but it was troublesome nonetheless. I am now back in the gym and eating better, but the rut still lingers in the shadows. With bipolar disorder, I feel deep emotion and when that is not happening I know something’s off. In an attempt to find something to bring those emotions back, I read through some quotes that seemed to bring me back to life. Here are ten quotes from black women to get you out of a mental rut:
1. “God, make me so uncomfortable that I do the very thing that I fear.”
-Ruby Dee
2. “Don’t feel entitled to anything that you didn’t sweat and struggle for.”
-Miriam Wright Edelman
3. “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
-Maya Angelou
4. “There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.”
-Rita Dove
5. “Don’t wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you’ve got to make yourself.”
– Alice Walker
6. “It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”
– Lena Horne
7. “You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”
-Toni Morrison
8. “It’s in the act of having to do things that you don’t want to do that you learn something about moving past the self.”
-bell hooks
9. “Discomfort is always a necessary part of enlightenment.”
-Pearle Cleage
10. “Hard days are the best because that’s when champions are made.”
-Gabby Douglas
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