Read this if you’re lonely. Read this if you’re tired. Read this if you’re having trouble staying afloat against the tide. Read this if you’ve hit a rough patch. Read this if you’re down and don’t know how to get back up again. Read this if your shoulders are getting tired from the world pushing down on you. Read this and realize that you are a survivor.

1. On days like this, your greatest accomplishment may simply be waking up…staying alive. On these days, you must be gentle with yourself. You must allow yourself to feel hurt or sad, tired or worn out. You’re doing the best that you can. You must tell yourself that it’s okay.

2. Try to remember what happiness feels like. Try to think about the times when a smile broke out across your face, even when you tried to hide it. Try to think about the times that you giggled, unexpectedly, at something not even funny. Don’t think of these feelings with envy; rather think of them with gentle and loving thoughts. Handle these memories with care. You see, these feelings will come again. You will feel happiness again. Feelings are all temporary; the present moment is here but it is fleeting. Things can and will change, and they do, every second of every day. The good times always come back around again. You will experience happiness again. I hope this thought brings you comfort.

3. Rest when you need to rest. Leave the guilt behind you. You can’t do everything, no matter how hard you try. Don’t push yourself to the brink of a mental breakdown. And if you are broken down, don’t punish yourself further. Listen to your body, and listen to your heart. Rest and reenergize your soul. Sometimes you need to breathe in order to regain your strength.

4. You’re allowed to be sad, just as you are allowed to be happy. There’s no need to judge your feelings. There’s no need to be a critic. Rather than harshly judging your emotions, your pains, care for them. Care for yourself. Give yourself the support and love it needs. You are in need of your own self-love.

5. You are not a failure. You never were a failure. Maybe something didn’t work out. Maybe many things didn’t work out. Maybe everything is falling apart. But you know what? When things fall apart, we can put them back together. We can build them back up into something stronger, something more beautiful. These beautiful flaws are what make us human; they are what make us who we are. So maybe you are down on the ground right now, but give yourself a chance. Be like a phoenix, and rebuild yourself from the ground up. Your heart is still in this battle.

6. Remember: when it rains, it doesn’t always pour. Just because something goes wrong doesn’t mean everything will go wrong. Don’t choose to believe that you should give up just because it didn’t work out this time.

7. Almost everything that you worry about is created in your head. Your anxieties, your worries, your fears: these are all produced by your thoughts. Your thoughts are quite often misleading and not aligned with reality. So please remember: don’t always believe what you think. Challenge your thoughts and stand up for yourself. You should never fall victim to the bullying of your own mind.

8. Healing takes time. It’s not a process that you can speed up. It’s not something that is done overnight. Take away the pressure you have put on yourself to heal. You were made to feel – you were made to be vulnerable and open. You never need to pretend to be okay when you are hurting. In the end, the pain of healing will strengthen your heart. The pain of healing with soften your soul. The scars will be signs of compassion and strength.

9. When we lose something we love, we may no longer want to be here alone. But we must continue onward, for no matter what or who we lost, we now have something even more powerful to contribute to the world. You see, when we are grieving, we are also transforming. We are becoming softer. We are becoming kinder and more compassionate. Our ability to feel deep down to our souls grows like a beautiful, burning flame in our heart.

10. Don’t let your mistakes eat away at you. Don’t anxiously dwell on what you could have done differently, or play the scene over and over again in your head. All you have is the present. So step forward with grace. If you need time to grieve or wallow, then rest. Breathe. Reflect and then forget. You don’t need to hurt yourself any more than you are already hurting.

11. Cry if you need to cry…mope if you need to mope.

12. So much pressure is placed on us to always “do the best you can.” On days when life is particularly heavy, this expectation may just bring you down even lower. You may start to think of all of the things you “should” be doing. All of the things you “should” have already done. These are not important. What is important is that you learn accept that maybe you really are doing the “best you can” solely by being yourself.

13. Likewise, accept that you are already stronger than you think simply by surviving. Surviving in itself is a great and powerful feat. Being human is hard. Feeling down is hard. Feeling alone is hard. Feeling exhausted is hard. So please, give yourself credit for surviving.

14. Remember that some days your heart may hurt and your shoulders may ache from the pressures of the world. You may feel like this will last eternally. But I promise you that it won’t. I promise that good things are yet to come, that one day soon you will feel like a feather, floating freely through life once again.

15. You are enough. You are more than enough. You don’t have to prove this to anyone. Simply by being here on this earth, simply by breathing, simply by hearing the beating of your own heart, you are enough. And you must remember this. Especially on these harder days. You are so beautiful and unique just how you are. You are perfectly created. You are a perfect being. So continue to breathe. You will get through these hard times. You have made it this far, so chances are, you will keep on keeping on.