Consider what you’ve learned about yourself through grief: Now you know how strong you are. Now you know what you can bear. Think about this strange gift — being confident in what you are capable of. Go forward with that strength.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 113
Photo: Cooper’s Hawk, South Riding, Virginia, March 14, 2022
Post-traumatic stress is a familiar idea. We have come to accept, if not expect, that trauma results in psychological and physical damage. But what about post-traumatic growth, “the positive change experienced as a result of the struggle with a major life crisis or a traumatic event”? Researchers have found that humans not only “bounce back” after traumatic events but actually push forward — taking professional risks, strengthening their relationships, and feeling a deeper sense of gratitude.
So often we think of loss as only destructive, but it is also generative — because every ending is also a beginning. When one thing vanishes, a space is created in its place. Of course, when we grieve, we are mourning a loss, but why not also ask what might grow in that barren place? Why not ask: What could I plant there?
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 94
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, November 1, 2021
Be brave enough to ask for help when you need it. There is no merit badge for Doing All the Hard Things Alone. Reach out.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 85
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, June 21, 2021
Fight the urge to withdraw, to fold in on yourself, as if your pain is contagious and might infect someone else. We are here to take care of one another; the care is what’s catching, spreading person to person to person. So take — and give — care.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 71
Photo: Bluebell Trail, Bull Run Regional Park, Virginia, April 8, 2021
Be thankful for your wounds, as strange as that sounds; the ways you’ve been hurt and the ways you’ve faltered make you useful to other people. Empathy is a kind of fellowship; be thankful that your wounds made this togetherness possible.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 70
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, April 6, 2021
It is not your job to make other people comfortable with who you are. Be wary of those who don’t want you to change or grow. Grow anyway — there is no alternative.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 66
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, March 30, 2021
I wish I could go back and tell the fearful young person I was what I know now about fire and growth. What would I say to her? Even if you do not feel brave, practice bravery. There will be times in your life when you feel as if life is burning down around you, but know that renewal is in its wake. Trust in what will open, what will grow, after something else has burned away, even when the landscape is charred black. And trust that one of the things guaranteed to grow — time after time, fire after fire — is you. Possibilities, like seeds, are being released into the air.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 94-95
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, March 6, 2015
Maybe you have a little voice inside that says you aren’t strong enough to handle what life’s left at your feet. That voice lies. Prove it wrong today — then repeat, repeat, repeat.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 28
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, December 1, 2014
Accept that you are a work in progress, both a revision and a draft: you are better and more complete than earlier versions of yourself, but you also have work to do. Be open to change. Allow yourself to be revised.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 22
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, December 6, 2020
Consider all you’ve outlived — including the life you thought you would have. You are durable, adaptable, resilient; just being here is a triumph. Hour by hour, prove the voice inside wrong — the one that says you can’t do it. Do it.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 16
Photo: Centreville, Virginia, February 7, 2010