When you find the value in yourself, your whole world changes. The thing is, your soul is meant to be a bird that can fly free, not the cage that holds it back. When you learn to look in the mirror and smile and shine, your eyes emit light that is so strong even the sun cannot produce something that bright. You have wings that need to be spread and not chained down. You have to move on from whatever it is that is holding you back. You have to move on from whatever is holding you down and kick it in the gut. You have to learn to rise again.

Plain and simple – you cannot allow other people to hold more power in your life than you hold yourself.

So often we lower ourselves to the standards that others hold us to. So often we allow the words of others to cripple us. So often we allow the opinions of others to bruise us. I’ve done it, you’ve done it, and so has the person who made you and I feel so. We give the key to our soul to people that don’t deserve it, and quite honestly, the only person who deserves it is you. We allow others to spend the night when they shouldn’t have even walked in the door. We share passwords with people who shouldn’t even be connected with us in the first place. And the funniest part of it all is we wonder why we get burned when we give others a match and teach them how to light it.

So stop.

Lock your soul, close your door and delete the unnecessary connections. Light your own candles and give yourself the power to blow them out when you feel like it. Start building yourself up again. Go out and run as far as the road goes, then turn around and run back even faster. Find the joy in the sweat, in the pounding and the heavy breathing. Let the burn in your legs ignite a stronger fire in your heart. Take a cold shower and the ice cold water to freeze the endorphins, making them last. Make this good moment last. Remember it, and live it out. Put on your favorite song and sing it at the top of your lungs, like its the last moment you’ll ever have a voice box. Watch the sunset and absorb every moment, as if you’ll be blind tomorrow. Hear everything, smell everything and feel everything.

Someday you will walk into a room and instead of wondering how many people like you, you’ll wonder why you ever cared about that. You’ll look at the ashes of your broken heart and your crushed soul and you’ll laugh. You’ll look at the person that you stupidly gave control of your life to, and then you’ll hit the gas pedal and let them eat the dust that you leave behind.

And one day, you’ll be completely independent. You’ll be entirely strong, empowered, happy.

Happy.

What a concept.

But it’s here, and it’s now, and it’s real. Your purpose is not what he or she dictates, your purpose is completely and wholly what you decide it will be each morning.

Your self-worth is not determined by another person’s opinion of you. You are not defined by the mess you’re in, but the tools you use to fix it.

When you learn to utilize your tools, the bruises fade and the harsh words become a distant memory. And here’s how it goes; you are new and beautiful and complete.