16 Quotes by Natalie M. Esparza

You don’t know what hangs in the balance if you don’t do this.

People coming to me for help meant I was the exact opposite of an imposter. So why did I struggle with feeling like one?

Unfortunately, mental health is still a taboo subject in our culture... I want to help normalize this discussion. If depression was talked about in more detail I may have been able to get the help I needed much sooner.

We all yearn for transformation but the current cultural conversation leads us to believe it is this incredibly positive and desirable experience. It makes it sound easy. But the truth is, transformation is slow, messy, difficult and almost always painful.

Choosing to avoid talking about money, sex, religion or mental health doesn’t make them go away. Each of these taboo subject are part of the human experience and to exclude them from “normal life” is silly, in fact impossible.

She [Janelle] helped me asked the question “who do you want to be in this moment?” I continue to ask myself this when faced with difficult decisions.

I thought graduation was going to be the start of my life, but I felt in limbo. When was it going to be my turn? I’d fought my depression-like hell to get to graduation, someone moved the goalpost.

I began to hate myself and pray that God would make me straight. I carried the fear that authenticity would be met with condemnation and shame for years. No one felt safe to share with anymore, so I hid it all deep within me.

In the South, Christianity was as ubiquitous as sweet tea and country music. Questioning my religion meant questioning how the entire world worked and my very identity.