In the name of love—that is, living a life you're deeply engaged with—here are three short poems about starting new as your best (or at least better) self. If you want your life to be different, then you need to connect your desire to the people, practices, and beliefs that mesh with this new reality.

With old ways crumbling, new wisdom was rising.

We don’t need to stay stuck in the past, and though we’re connected to how we got here, life isn’t required to go on as it always has. We can make it new. At any time of our choosing.

Here’s what I’ve found: Change can be a friend. A best friend. A giver of hope. A teacher of personal freedom. A call for forgiveness. Sometimes, a necessity for sanity.

Sometimes, it takes a fed-up body and a tired soul to make you realize that staying the same just isn’t an option anymore.

Here's to your highest self, and a chance for something new.

3 Poems for Starting New and Diving Deeper into the Life That You Crave

She’s never burned any bridges,

But she thinks about starting over

Somewhere totally new.

Not with fire or fury

Reflecting in her eyes—

Nothing less than passion,

Nothing but the brightness of the future,

Nothing but the connections that make her

Feel good enough

Just being who she knows herself to be.

— Looking forward

What do I have to do

To feel like I’m wholly new?

How to mend this overwhelming brokenness

That’s taken root

Deeper than hope seems to go.

The tectonic plates of my internal landscape

Have shifted

And there are heart-shattering earthquakes

Coming real soon.

I’m not sure there’s anything I can do

To avoid the teachings that’ll

Surely come through.

I pray something worthwhile is delivered

By the molten rock

That covers everywhere I’ve walked

And changes everything iv’e known as the truth.

— New ground

Who says you can’t be

Different than

What you’re expected to be?

When it comes to living in love,

There is no reason

Not to blossom

That’s good enough to follow.

You cannot hide in shallow waters for long, for

No excuse is clever enough

To a heart that knows how it feels.

Anything short of authenticity

Would be wrong.

Like the flowers unravel and

The cocoon is meant to be broken open,

Be what Love pulls you to be.

— Breaking free

. . .

Tell me:

Which of these poems spoke to you the most today?

Tell me in the comments. I read every single one, and I’d love to know!

With love,

Jen

P.S. Want to celebrate this next chapter of your life with something you can hold? Go visit my shop for prints of handwritten poems and other words of hope and heart. If you forget what matters or why you started in the first place, you’ll have something to remind you.