Welcome to Love Notes from Rhonda.

And today I am going to share one of my all time favorite quotes.

And the reason I'm sharing this quote is because if you decide to believe it, as I did when I first read.

Will fundamentally.

Change your willingness to accept your uniqueness, accept your thoughts, accept who you are.

So Ralph Waldo Emerson, of course is one of the greats.

And this is the quote that is in his essay called Self Reliance.

If you have never read Self Reliance, I really invite you to.

It's an essay, it's not a whole book.

And it is filled with gems like this.

To believe your own thought.

To believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius.

To believe your own thought.

To believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all women.

That is genius.

To believe your own thought.

To believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all people, that is genius.

When I first stumbled upon this line, I believe in a class and I believe Self Reliance was assigned to me.

And I just once I read Self Reliance, I just devoured Ralph Waldo Emerson.

He is one of the greats, one of the brilliants, one of the philosophers that really speaks to something beyond how you and I normally think.

About the world and about ourselves.

And so when I had this thought.

I had been thinking about, well, you know, what, this God stuff, this spirituality.

By this time I believe I was back in God's arms.

I believe I had already wrestled God to the ground or he had wrestled me to the ground.

So I do believe that I was able to say the word God again.

Cause I didn't say it for 20 years.

And I have done a lot of personal development.

Devoured books, taken workshops, went to therapy many times, et cetera, et cetera.

So I was wrestling with the idea of, well, wait a minute.

The things that I've learned in all of these courses and all of these classes and all of these workshops and in therapy and everywhere I've ever gone just do not align in my heart.

It felt disconnected.

You know, over here this person would say one thing and then over there another person would say something.

And both sounded good and true, but they didn't match.

It was like two puzzles that didn't create a new story, a new vision.

They didn't go together.

It was two mixed up puzzles that didn't make a picture.

And I had been thinking this.

Now before I read this quote in Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson, I had figured that I Was just stupid, right?

Like, why does everybody else look like they're getting it or feel like look, you know, seem like they're getting it, but I'm not.

Like, why?

I don't get it.

Like, why?

Everybody else seems like, da, da, da, da, da.

God, this, personal development that.

Oh, yeah, it all works.

I'm amazing.

I just would look at them and I'd be like, it must be me.

I must be stupid.

I just don't get it.

And when I read this quote, to believe your own thought.

Okay, so my thought at the time was this philosophy called spirituality, or this thing called God and personal development and self help and.

Mysticism, and I could go on and on.

Didn't align.

That was my thought.

Didn't align.

Didn't mean they weren't all true in their own right.

But it just kept missing the mark for me.

There was something missing.

So when I read this quote, to believe your own thought, I thought, oh, my God, what if.

What if I'm not the only one that thinks this.

I mean, this quote allowed me to contemplate that people might think what I do and that maybe I had something to contribute in this world.

That's how important this quote is.

To believe your own thought, to believe what is true for you in your private heart.

So in my private heart, thinking things weren't aligning.

It didn't seem quite right.

Again, each of these things on their own work for their particular philosophy, right?

You can go to church, and there's some.

Again, personal philosophies that work and personal developments and philosophies that work.

But putting it all together in a big pot don't work.

And they don't work together.

They don't play well with each other.

And I just felt something was missing.

So to believe what is true in your private.

In your private heart.

And I remember thinking to myself, you mean other people could think this way?

You mean other people could think this way.

Is true for all people.

That is genius.

So sometimes still to this day, when I'm having a new thought, right, I'm having a new something move through me that is in some ways shocking to my senses, shocking to the way I live my life, right?

Some new.

Movement that something moves through me.

I go back to this quote.

Well, what if it is something that other people feel or think?

And what if you're the one that's gonna say it?

And this is how I said yes to fearless living.

One of the key steps of me saying yes to fearless living, just saying and seeing that it is fear that connects it all fear connects spirituality with personal development.

Fear, right.

Fear.

Is the anchor point.

Fear is it.

And out of fear of trying to avoid fear, get around fear, pretend fear doesn't exist, all these other things were created, right?

All these things are created in order to get away from fear.

But nobody actually talks about fear except don't be afraid.

And I wanted to and I knew it was fear.

And I said yes.

So you probably have some thoughts in your private heart that you wonder if anybody else has.

Well I guarantee somebody else has those thoughts.

You truly are not alone.

And honoring those things, honoring what's in your private heart.

Is genius.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all people.

That is genius.

Trust yourself.

You're doing better than you think you are.

Until next time, be fearless.

I love you.