Three Gentle Reminders Everyone Needs To Hear Right Now

I.

The truth is — genuine connection is ease. It is peace. When you find it you will know. You will feel seen. You will feel respected. At the end of the day, the human beings that surround you in this life should not exhaust you, or hollow you out, or leave you feeling like you are hard to love. You should not have to play games, or beg for someone to care for you the way you have deeply shown up to care for them. Please, do not romanticize the things in this life that hurt. You cannot love someone into loving you, or being ready, or meeting their potential; you cannot close their hands around your heart if they are not willing to hold it themselves. You have to let them go. You have to focus on the people in your life who bring you back home to yourself. You have to focus on standing up for that kind of connection in your life, because it exists. It exists. Trust that it will find you

II.

It is often in your weakest moments that you have the opportunity to be the strongest. However, this does not mean putting on a brave face and pretending that the heaviness does not exist. No, instead this means sitting with your feelings, and experiencing them as they are — letting them wash over you like rain. This means choosing to confront the voids, instead of filling them or numbing them or distracting yourself from the fact that they exist. In an age of extreme stimulation, in an age where we can sweep our pain under the rug, and focus on everything outside of ourselves that is readily available and seeking our attention, it takes a lot of courage to face what hurts. To look it in the eyes, to give it a name, to understand that you cannot outrun yourself forever. That is what makes it an act of strength. That is where the healing begins. 

III.

Stay open to this world. Stay open to this world, because it is filled with human beings, and experiences, and feelings that will deeply, and beautifully, grow you and inspire you and remind you that there is so much out there just waiting to be discovered. All it takes is one chance encounter, one singular moment in time, to completely change your life — to expand the way you see happiness, and hope; to crack your heart open, to introduce it to levels of feeling and caring that you never knew existed. Yes, it is risky to be vulnerable, to be unguarded in this life; but it is far riskier to stay closed to all of the possibility that exists within it, to stay fortified and safe and tucked away from feeling. At the end of the day, you are here to risk your heart. You are here to connect. Please don’t ever forget that.