Tag: Glow Welle

This Is How You Start To Let Go, Even If You Don’t Feel Like You’re Ready Yet

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You cannot force yourself to let go, no matter how much you know you want to.

You cannot force something out of your brain space, no matter how much you don’t want it to be there.

You cannot just simply loosen your grip and relax a little and will yourself to stop thinking entirely about something around which your entire world used to orbit.

This is not how it goes.

You are not going to let go the moment someone tells you to “move on,” the day you realize you have to admit certain defeat, the heart-dropping second it occurs to you that hope is, indeed, futile.

You do not let go by simply willing yourself not to care anymore. This is something that people who have never been really, really hung up on something think. This is something that people who have never been deeply attached to something for a sense of safety and security and love and their future believe.

There is nothing wrong with you because you almost get angry when people tell you to just “let go” so nonchalantly, as though they couldn’t fathom the storms in your head and heart.

How can you become so passive about something you have spent so much of your time, and your life, actively working to maintain and restore?

You can’t.

You don’t.

You start to let go the day you take one step toward building a new life, and then let yourself lay and stare at the ceiling and cry for as many hours as you need.

You start to let go the day you realize that you cannot continue to revolve around a missing gap in your life, and going on as you were before will simply not be an option.

You start to let go the moment you realize that this is the impetus, this is the catalyst, this is that moment the movies are made about and the books are written around and songs are inspired by.

This is the moment you realize that you will never find peace standing in the ruins of what you used to be.

You can only move on if you start building something new.

You let go when you build a new life so immersive and engaging and exciting, you slowly, over time, forget about the past.

When we try to force ourselves to “let go” of something, we grip onto it tighter, and harder, and more passionately than ever before. It’s like if someone tells you to not think of a white elephant; that’s the only thing you’ll be able to focus on.

Our hearts work the same way as our minds in this regard. As long as we are telling ourselves that we must let go, the more deeply we feel attached.

So don’t tell yourself to let go.

Instead, tell yourself that you can cry for as long as you need. That you can fall to pieces and be a mess and let your life collapse and crumble. Tell yourself that you can let your foundation fall through.

What you will realize is that you are still standing.

What you build in the wake and the aftermath of loss will be so profound, so stunning, you will realize that maybe, the loss was part of the plan. Maybe it awakened a part of you that would have remained dormant had you not been pushed the way you were.

If you are certain that you cannot let go of what is hurting you, then don’t.

But take one step today, and then another tomorrow, to rebuild a new life for yourself. Piece by piece, day by day.

Because sooner or later, you’re going to go an hour and realize you didn’t think about them, or it. Then a day, then a week… and then years and swaths of your life drift by and everything you thought would break you becomes a distant memory, something you look back at and smile.

Everything you lose becomes something you are profoundly grateful for. With time, you see that it was not the path. It was what was standing in your way.

Congratulate Yourself—You Are Stronger Than You Ever Imagined

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It starts out a day like any other. Everything is on track until a bombshell turns your world upside down. Everything is good and beautiful until the news poisons the mirage. Everything is going well—until all of a sudden, it’s not.

I remember thinking throughout my journey that I could never ever stand tall as weak was all I could be. Standing tall felt honestly like an insurmountable task. I wanted the floor to absorb me most days. All I could think was ”I wished I knew how to be soft yet strong, too”.

I did not know it then, did not know it until many months or even a couple of years later; in my weakest moment, I was the most strong. Out of my most fragile state, the broken pieces stitched themselves back together from fibers of heartache and steel.

You see, when you feel like your world is ending; when you feel like you are shattered beyond repair and that you will never be okay again; this is where the magic happens.

It is only in your most honest moments, it is only when you feel utterly exposed, it is only when you are stripped bare of everyone and everything that has comprised the construct of who you are, that you can truly transform. Observe, learn, grow. You are the only one who can unbreak yourself. It is out of the ashes that your strongest self emerges bright with resolve.

Weak? You were never weak. To be raw is real. To be open is to be courageous. To be vulnerable is to be brave. You turned out to be stronger than you ever could have imagined. Your heart is a garden, and within it blooms strength.

You’re Allowed To Thrive

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You’re allowed to thrive.

You’re allowed to dig deep into your soul and find the things that lift you up and give you purpose and feed them. You’re allowed to nourish them and cultivate them in your own life each and every day. You don’t have to wait for someone to give you permission to begin. You don’t have to coast by, you don’t have to fly under the radar, you don’t have to live in a way that doesn’t let people see your shine – you are allowed to flourish.

You are allowed to thrive.

Yes, you.

You’re allowed to thrive in a marriage or a partnership that makes you want to lasso the moon. You’re allowed to wait for the kind of love that sticks. You’re allowed to wait for that person who feels like home, and your best friend, and your biggest cheerleader all rolled into one human being. I hope you hear me when I say that you do not have to merely settle into your marriage or your forever partnership.

You don’t have to settle for struggle – you’re allowed to thrive.

You’re allowed to thrive in a career that makes you feel excited to get up for work every day. It’s ok to want something that fills your heart and your bank account with meaning. It’s ok to wish that the two would co-exist. (They can.) Just as you wouldn’t settle for the great love of your life, I hope you wouldn’t settle for a career that leaves you empty, either. Let yourself shine in the skills that you have, and stop beating yourself up if you flounder within that discovery. It happens to the best of us. The trick is not believing the lie that you will flounder forever – you don’t have to. You’re allowed to thrive.

I’m not telling you that there won’t be moments of struggle. Of course, there will be. There will be moments of struggle, and moments of floundering. There will be moments when you think that you’ll never break through the surface or see the sun again. The key is remembering that you don’t have to stay hidden beneath the dirt for forever. You were built to grow, to bloom, to blossom and to flourish.

You were made to thrive.

Sometimes Pain Is The Best Way To Learn What’s Important

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Disappointments, pain and suffering are probably the hardest ways to learn any lesson but if I’m being honest, they’re the best ways to learn what’s important.

That gut-wrenching feeling in the depth of your heart, those uncontrollable tears, that moment of utter despair when you feel like you have failed yourself or you were taken advantage of or the temporary brain freeze after a shocking reality of a situation or a person, these are the moments you actually need to never let yourself stoop to that level again. This feeling will haunt you every time you face a similar situation, like an alarm bell that goes off every time you’re in danger and it will remind you of how you felt, what you went through, how long it took to get over it and in that moment, you’ll realize what’s important. You’ll put yourself first. You’ll promise yourself never to feel that way again.

You’ll get disappointed in a lot of people but that’s how you’ll learn not to make excuses for the ones you care about if they’re not treating you with respect. You’ll learn not to give someone the benefit of the doubt if they’re constantly giving you reasons to doubt them. You’ll learn that you don’t have much left in your tank for people who are in your life for the wrong reasons. You’ll finally learn how to say goodbye and drive off alone.

Your life will not always teach you the important lessons in a tender way and maybe that’s not how you’re supposed to learn such life-changing lessons. That’s why the things that shake us up the most are things that live with us. The incidents that change us and the circumstances that force us to face our fears, our demons or our weaknesses do not come in a subtle and comforting way, they come in like a storm wiping away everything you once knew and believed in. They come in and reverse everything so you can see things from a whole new perspective.

And maybe it’s a little unfair that every time we have to learn something so valuable, we have to go through a hurricane of emotions or our lives have to fall apart but if it will save us from a lifetime of the same disappointments or mistakes, then maybe it’s worth it.

If pain is an inevitable part of life, then the least we could do is try to minimize it. We may not be able to get it right every time or sniff the pain from miles away and run but maybe we can armor ourselves with tools like strength, resilience, wisdom, logic and faith so we can protect ourselves from the severity of that pain or the agony of these tragedies.

Maybe we don’t pick our pain or our suffering but we can pick how to cope with them, we go back to those hard lessons and we remember what’s important, we remember what’s worth suffering for and pick ourselves up again faster every time because we’re well equipped. We’re well prepared.

You Deserve To Heal From Your Trauma

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I know you may not believe me when I say this, but please consider the following:

What happened to you was not your fault.

It wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t.

And you can fight me on this. I don’t know you and I don’t know what happened after all. But I do know why someone would want to name themselves as the culprit for their own pain.

I know because I do it, too.

It is a coping mechanism. It is far easier to cast stones in our own directions than to admit we are in far less control of our lives than we want to be. And that sometimes, the people we trust do not have our best interests in mind or that sometimes life is terribly and utterly unfair.

So, we go inward and point fingers at our reflections. We see our faces in the lineups. We truly believe that if we are able to blame ourselves for all of those terrible things that happened to us, we can then avoid that hurt from ever happening again. It is a means of trying to control both the narrative and the future all at once. But mostly, it’s a matter of self-protection.

And yet, this method is insufficient. Because the pain is still there, isn’t it? And maybe that is because we are taking accountability for what was never our fault in the first place.

Healing from the traumatic is difficult enough without blaming ourselves for it. The truth of the matter is that we deserve to heal from our trauma. We must stop carrying the blame on our tired shoulders. We need to remember that what we went through does not define us. We are not our worst moments, we are not our haunting, and we are not our shattered pieces.

We deserve to move on. We deserve to take our power back. We deserve to get better. We deserve to heal from our trauma.

And I hope we give ourselves the chance to do so.

When You’re Healing From Past Trauma, Remember To Show Yourself Compassion

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I know that dealing with past trauma can be really tough. It’s hard when memories and feelings that you thought you had moved past come back up, but it’s important to remember that you’re not alone in this. There are ways to manage your trauma and take care of yourself in the process.

First things first: it’s important to acknowledge and validate your feelings. Don’t try to suppress or ignore them. Allow yourself to feel what you’re feeling and know that it’s normal and okay. It’s a big step to recognize that you’re feeling overwhelmed and to take the time to process your emotions. When they come to the surface, when the tears are flowing, let them come. By doing this, you’ll be able to understand and identify your triggers better, which will help you in the long run.

Self-care is crucial too. Taking care of your physical and emotional well-being can make a big difference in how you feel. This could be as simple as going for a walk, eating nutritious food, getting enough sleep, or practicing mindfulness. Make time for activities that bring you joy and relaxation. And don’t hesitate to reach out to a trusted friend or family member for support. Talking to someone who cares can make a huge difference, especially when you’re feeling overwhelmed.

Working with a mental health professional can also be incredibly helpful. They can provide a safe and supportive environment to process your trauma and help you develop coping strategies. They can also offer tools to manage triggers and reduce the impact of your trauma on your life. A therapist can help you work through your feelings and experiences in a nonjudgmental and compassionate way, which can be incredibly healing.

It’s also important to be kind to yourself. Don’t beat yourself up for not being “over” your trauma yet. Treat yourself with the same compassion and understanding that you would offer to a friend. Remember that healing takes time and effort, and it’s okay to take it one day at a time.

Additionally, it’s important to understand that everyone’s healing journey is different and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Don’t compare yourself to others or feel like you need to be at a certain stage of healing by a certain time. Trust the process and be patient with yourself.

Finally, don’t forget to celebrate the small victories. Maybe you’ve made it through a trigger without panicking, or you’ve talked about your trauma for the first time with someone. These victories, big or small, are worth celebrating and can give you the motivation to keep going.

Dealing with past trauma can be challenging, but with self-compassion, self-care, therapy, and support from loved ones, it is possible to heal and move forward. Remember to be kind to yourself, take it one day at a time, and always reach out for support when you need it. You got this!

Being Alone Can Be Terrifying—But It’s Actually The Key To Your Happiness

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I. There is so much power in being alone… 

You are born alone, you live alone, and you die alone. Terrifying, right? But truthfully, you are the only person in this entire world who fully understands your experiences, knows your traumas and has heard the sound of your inner voice. At the end of your life, you will have been your own closest companion and the only being to truly have known you… Everyone else will simply have been a voyeur. 

Even your most intimate relationships are just intersections, sometimes entanglements, but never complete convergences of you. Within them, you exist through a filter, so living for them is living inauthentically. Out of all matter, space, and lifeforms, you are the only one to have witnessed this world through your lens; your time alone on this planet is quite literally incredible. It is the only proof of your raw existence and the only instance of you that is not inherently a performance. It cannot be judged or validated or even perceived by anyone else. In essence, your alone time is the only time that you are fully you. 

In complete solitude, you are so alive, having an experience that is incomparable to any other. Fundamentally, your time alone cannot be documented, preserved, or revisited; it exists in the present moment and then is lost forever. Value derives from rarity, and as time itself is fleeting and inimitable, being alone must be your most valuable asset. 

You are the only permanent fixture of your reality—and all else is temporary. Consequently, your overall life satisfaction hinges on the quality of your alone time. Being with yourself is a more unique experience than the wildest documented adventure, so find fascination in it. Because any mundane moment alone is wholly yours, these instances should be seen as the pinnacles of your existence. 

When you can extract contentment from these moments, you give yourself the unshakeable peace that asceticism describes: omnipresent, joyous, and completely your own. Peace that, ostensibly, lasts until death. You are born alone, you live alone, you die alone. If you want to die happy, you have to master being alone. (Maybe.) 

II. There is so much power in being alone… 

…and it is fully under attack. Just by existing, you feed a system that actively suppresses your natural desire for self-relationship. In the West’s economy, it is nearly impossible to access your own power, because the state of capitalism effectively drowns out your capacity for critical thought. You are rarely alone anymore, as the data industry works to monetize every millisecond of your attention. Even in physical solitude, the internet is ubiquitous, working to sell you and sell to you. 

You are rarely alone, and it is not your choice anymore; you are a product, plain and simple, and your time alone is antithetical to the system. Describing the emergence of late-stage capitalism, author Shoshana Zuboff writes, “It is no longer enough to automate information flows about us; the goal now is to automate us.” The environment has shifted your baseline into overstimulation, and your subsequent resistance to critical thought is exactly what sustains it. 

By design, you are terrified to be alone. The anxiety of facing your feelings is a direct product of the industries that usurp your alone time, alienate you from yourself, and then convince you to fill that void with product. You are afraid of the unfamiliar, and every moment you spend in that fear benefits the same system that created it. 

Critical thought moves us forward. When people are unwilling to accept the system as is, revolutions are catalyzed. Throughout history, regimes have violently suppressed activist voices, but capitalism has evolved a less brutal, more sinister approach. By shortening attention spans, inundating the population with stimuli, and eliminating time alone, it asphyxiates the very critical thoughts that could become revolutions. 

You live in a dystopia that effectively eliminates your ability to question it. As your brain space is monetized further and further, you are separated from yourself more and more. Who benefits?

III. There is so much power in being alone… 

Use it to heal. The time you spend caring for your inner child has greater ramifications than you can imagine–not just for you, but for all the generations to come after you. Because your relationships with others are simply projections of your relationship with self, the healing that occurs at a personal level translates to large-scale societal development. Humanity is all connected, and your unique experience is an integral piece of the puzzle. 

Your brain exists to serve you: to recognize danger, to isolate negative patterns, and to formulate solutions. When you retreat from the system, you can provide the answers to your own stress, reactivity, and self-sabotage. In intentional alone-time, you build self-awareness and mental fortitude, cultivating a healthy relationship with your only forever companion. 

By becoming familiar with yourself, you learn your traumas and stop holding yourself accountable for what has been done to you. You discover that your reactivity is derived from situations out of your control– ones that cannot define you. You learn why you made your last decision and that you are fully in charge of your next one. As these truths solidify, you lend grace to others and externalize that morality is relative. When you recognize that humans are simply products of their experiences, you become a more empathetic friend, lover, family member, and person. You become the change you want to see, and, slowly, the world evolves through you. 

You are the only person you will ever fully know; you are the only person you can ever fully love. From that love, generational trauma ends and generational healing begins. When you reject the industry of overstimulation, you find inner peace, disrupt the system, and move society forward.

You are the composite result of millions of years of survival, strategy, and love. Your existence is proof that life finds a way, and that innovation and beauty are facets of nature. You are the most powerful tool in existence, so make remarkable use of yourself… by doing nothing. Seriously. You are underutilizing your most valuable asset because you don’t do nothing enough. 

The Best Healing Is Letting Go

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I have never been particularly good at letting go.

I remember it all, especially those things that ache. In fact, I recall those wounds the most. Call it a negativity bias, mental illness, a cry for help, or all of the above, the point is that I hold on to things far longer than I probably should.

I treat forgetting as a betrayal. I cling to memories, no matter how painful, as if those hazy, crystallized images are a lifeline. I white-knuckle relationships long past their expiration dates, and I hold on to mistakes as if gripping their edges will save me from making them again.

I replay last words in my head over and over again. I refer to my past the way an engineer refers to her blueprints. I can’t rebuild if I don’t know where I’ve been, right? I can’t dodge hurt if I don’t see it coming, right?

But I’m coming to realize that living in this way isn’t preventing the aching. If anything, holding on and on and on to the past is only prolonging the hurt and keeping me from the present and creating a better future.

But mostly, hanging on is keeping me from the healing I deserve.

However, I’m finally beginning to realize that the best healing is sometimes just letting some things go. The best healing is moving forward despite the fact I didn’t handle something perfectly or that someone else couldn’t love me back. The best healing is accepting that I won’t always receive the apology I deserve or be able to give the one I have dancing on the tip of my tongue.

The best healing is letting go, and then continuing to live despite all of the wreckage, despite the fray, and despite the heartbreak. Because the alternative isn’t working. I might as well try and trust the free fall and see what happens.

When You Feel Like You’re Not Where You’re Supposed To Be In Life, Try Changing Your Perspective

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You are exactly where you need to be. Seriously. Don’t believe me? Imagine that you are looking at yourself from the moon. 

Stepping out of your body is an unbelievable tool for self-awareness. Take that one step further and expand from basic objectivity to philosophy. Consider your existence from the perspective of the moon… so far removed from the day-to-day that the only thing that remains in sight is what is truly real: the grandeur of life.

I know it is hard to envision the world beyond yourself, but the concept of existence is truly so much greater than your reality. When you accept that there is so much more to the world than what you see, hear, touch, and experience every day, you give yourself the opportunity to be greater than yourself. You connect to all of existence and ultimately recognize that you are exactly where you need to be. Seriously.  

When you see yourself from the moon, you also see every piece of context in existence: the struggles of the individual person, the struggles of the collective humanity, the struggles of the planet’s entirety. You are not isolated; you belong to something much bigger, more complicated, and more intertwined than you could ever imagine. Truthfully, the you from the moon is a remarkable thing—an amalgamation of time, space, and matter coming together to create a beautiful being that has achieved its only goal: survival. 

Gaining this perspective will change the way you view your current status. Look back on your life and watch the story of you as a voyeur far away on the moon. As you go through it, recognize every moment that you swore you couldn’t come back from… and recognize that you are somehow still standing. The fact that you are reading this right now is proof that you have overcome everything so far. It is proof that life finds a way. Against all odds, you have survived. By looking at yourself through an objective lens, you realize that your story is not mediocre or mundane whatsoever—it is a story of survival and triumph. There are no mistakes, because every decision has led you to right here and right now. 

Maybe you aren’t where you want to be right now, but you are somewhere on the journey towards it. Maybe you just haven’t achieved your goals because there are a few more “won’t come back from” points to get through. Maybe the reason you aren’t living your dream life is because you haven’t reached the perspective to realize that you already are. When you get to the moon and look back, it’s clear that there were only ever two options: either you could have fought to be exactly where you are right now or you could have not survived. You survived.

Every time you thought that you hit rock bottom, you have shown up for yourself, fighting your fears and proving that you have the answers. The struggles you endure make you more prepared for the next ones, so find peace in the fact that you have overcome before and you will overcome again. Everything is going to be alright, because you are exactly where you need to be right now, I promise. You could see it from the moon. 

Perspective is everything. Astronaut Michael Collins said, “I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of, let’s say 100,000 miles, their outlook would be fundamentally changed. The all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument suddenly silenced.” Living solely in your day-to-day leaves you with tunnel vision, surrounded by all-important borders and noisy arguments, and in that state, you fail to recognize your true purpose. Instead, zoom out, differentiate between what is real and what is meaningless, and take pride in your existence so far—it is proof that you have always chosen the better option. 

You are a part of the wonderful mystery of life, a small piece in a beautiful ecosystem that is characterized by one thing and one thing only: survival. What a wonder it is to be alive. What a wonder it is to be you. 

8 Things Everyone Should Do For Themselves At Least Once A Month

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Sometimes, life can just get so beyond busy that it is difficult to check off every single item off our to-do lists. There is often some sort of task looming in the back of our minds that we know we should really get around to doing (but are far too overwhelmed to actually face it).

However, not all hope is lost. One great way to get a handle everything is to make a monthly checklist. Essentially, this monthly checklist would contain all the things you should do at least once a month to take care yourself (and your life).

Here are eight things everyone should do for themselves at least once a month.

1. Reflect on the previous month

First, look back at the previous month and reflect on what worked, what didn’t work, and what you’d like to do moving into the next month. This works best if you make sure to write down your answers to these prompts.

Reflection is important because it turns off the auto-pilot and forces you to be more present and mindful. By addressing what isn’t going as planned, you can work towards better, more efficient ways to lead your life. And, by acknowledging what is going well, you’re able to keep up that momentum.

2. Schedule a “life admin” day

This is best done at the beginning of the month, but a life admin day is an entire day dedicated to doing those nagging to-do list items that fall under “life.” Think scheduling out important appointments, reviewing your budget, organizing your files (digital and otherwise), etc. By dedicating one day to “life admin” work, you’re able to stay on top of everything for the month ahead.

3. Pick one habit to implement (or one habit to kick)

We are our habits. Each month, pick one habit you want to start implementing or choose another habit you want to stop doing. By only focusing on one habit at a time, you’re more likely to be successful in your efforts.

4. Dedicate at least one day for doing absolutely nothing

Rest isn’t lazy; it is absolutely imperative. Make sure you’re taking at least one day to do pretty much nothing at all. You deserve a break. You deserve rest. You deserve to take some time to yourself.

5. Get together with a loved one you’ve been meaning to see (and haven’t)

Your relationships are important. Each month, take the initiative to see at least one person in your life you’ve been meaning to get together with but haven’t. Not only will this make your relationships stronger, but making time for connection is one of the best ways to recenter yourself and feel more grounded.

6. Backup your digital life

When is that last time you backed up your digital life? Exactly. This should be done once monthly.

7. Deep clean your home

This can be done during life admin day, but make sure you are taking one day per month to do a good deep clean of your home. In addition to regular cleaning activities, use this deep clean as an opportunity to get around to those tasks such as wiping down the inside of the microwave, cleaning the oven, getting around to the baseboards, etc.

8. Do that one thing you’ve been putting off that will take 30 seconds

Yes, that one thing you’re thinking of as you read this. Do it right now. And then the following month, do the next thing you’ve been neglecting.