True strength has very little to do with your physical performance.

Whether or not your muscles are defined, how long you can hold a yoga pose or your ability to kick up into handstand means very little in this vast concept that is life.

True strength has very little to do with plank poses and deadlifts and everything to do with your ability to move through hardships, sorrow, and pain.

You think doing crossfit five times a week makes you strong? Practicing yoga every day? Lifting weights? Try getting up every hour of the night to feed a newborn baby. Dragging yourself out of bed while suffering from depression. Watching a loved one suffering from cancer slowly slip away. Try coming home from war to a life you no longer recognize. Living with a disability. Getting laid off knowing there is no one else there to feed your family. Try finding out that your best friend just died in a car crash.

All of you people out there telling yourselves you’re not strong enough because you don’t have a rock hard stomach, you are enough. You are so enough. Life has made you strong in more ways than one.

When the going gets tough and nothing makes sense and you start doubting who you are, just remember this.

~

Relephant:

5 Quotes That Make Me Feel Strong.

~

Author: Rachel Brathen

Editor: Katarina Tavčar

Photo: Author’s own