Honestly. You’re allowed to be sad. And you should give yourself permission to do so. Fall apart. Weep until you are all dried up. Flood the rivers and oceans with your regrets and with your mistakes and your heartbreaks. And break wide open.

Nothing good will come from bottling up your heart. Nothing good will come from repressing your every emotion. Nothing good will come from living a lie.

Because the fact is, healing is not linear. Self love is not linear. And life is not linear.

Not all things will go your way. You are going to make big mistakes. You are going to fail. You are going to get your heart broken. You are going to fall in love with someone who doesn’t love you back. You are going to fall apart.

So let yourself do exactly that.

Let yourself stay broken. Let yourself stay in bed for too many days at a time. Let yourself forget to eat and sleep too much. Let yourself not go to class. Let yourself forget to feel anything at all.

Let yourself weep the minute you wake up when you remember everything. Let yourself crawl into a deep dark hole of despair and of pain and of grief. Let yourself be immersed in self hatred, in hell.

Let yourself breakdown. Let yourself yell and scream at the world for putting you in this position. Let yourself question if God is real. Let yourself believe that maybe there isn’t a higher power after all. Let yourself wail to the night stars, shaking your fists at whatever or whoever inflicted this pain onto you.

Let yourself feel all you need to feel. Let yourself die and be reborn. Let yourself fade. Let yourself go dark. Let yourself go silent. Let yourself feel anything and everything at all.

Only then will you be able to heal those deep wounds that weigh heavily on your chest. Only then will you be able to see past the darkness that surrounds you. Only then will you be able to start to fight. To fight for yourself. To fight for your life. To fight for your happiness.

So let yourself fall and break and bend and shake. Let yourself crumble. Let yourself be a ghost of your former self. Let yourself grow limp.

And then pick yourself back up, and wipe away those clouds, and stand up. Because after you fall apart there is only one thing left to do. And that’s to live again.

And the only way to get from rock bottom to the top, is to hit the ground, and slowly but surely, rise again.