I know you’re having a hard day, or a hard month, or maybe even a hard year. And I know that sometimes it’s much easier to let your mind be consumed by the hard stuff than it is to focus on what is good in your life. But for two minutes, while you read this, I want you to try your absolute hardest to focus on the good. I want you to try to forget that you’re in a bad mood, and I want you to try to remember what it feels like to be okay again. I want you to clear your mind of everything that’s hard, everything that’s tolling, and focus on what is good or what one day could be good.

You might think that you are not able to feel good, or that you do not deserve to feel good. This is wrong. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or where you’ve been. It doesn’t even matter where you are going. What matters is that you don’t have to do anything at all to be worthy of goodness. You don’t have to earn goodness. You don’t have to be a certain way or look a certain way. I want you to realize that you are so valuable and so very loved and that feeling bad or low doesn’t negate how special you are.

I want you to know that you are going to be okay one day soon, and I want you to understand that feeling bad doesn’t make you a bad person. You don’t need to feel guilty for feeling bad. Sometimes when you are feeling your worse, the work happens. You grow and you blossom, and you realize what’s important in the world…and that’s what will lead you out of the darkness and into the light. When you are crying or being too hard on yourself, I want you to take a deep breath in and realize that you don’t have to bully yourself. You don’t have to make yourself feel bad. It’s okay to be gentle. It’s okay to forgive yourself and it’s okay to let yourself rest when you don’t know which direction to go. I want you to learn that you don’t have to do anything or earn anything to be worth a thousand stars. You are worth all of the stars in the sky by just being alive, by just being yourself.

And I know that you are focused on your mistakes and your letdowns. I know you are focused on what is lacking in your life rather than on what is abundant. But you have so much abundance. You live in so much abundance. You just have to see it. And that’s the battle; seeing it, believing it. But I promise, it’s there for you…it’s all out there waiting for you.

You deserve to live a life of abundance. A life abundant in love and compassion, and light and joy. Even if you are stuck in the darkness, I hope that you know that you are worth a million times more than your failures and mistakes. You made it through to today and for that you are courageous. It doesn’t matter if you fall down over and over again. You eventually will get back up, over and over again. And if you stay down for a while, look up at the stars rather than down in the darkness.

And I know you think that everybody else around you seems to be more successful or more loved. But it’s not true. Not even a little bit. We are all living our own stories. We are all writing and constructing our own plot lines. You can’t compare a sci-fi novel to a romance, so why compare your life to anyone else’s? Why compare your beauty to anyone else’s?

I want you to know that your story is yours for a reason. Your life is yours for a reason. And on the outside, on your story’s cover, you are just as beautiful as every other soul on this earth, because you have your own sparkle in your eyes and your own rosy cheeks that resemble no others.

And I want you to know that whether you have one friend or fifteen friends, you are likable and lovable, and you should never doubt it. I want you to know that it’s okay to feel down sometimes. You don’t need to make up for it or fix it. Sometimes you just have to be there in the moment and live through it. But I do hope that if you are having a hard time, you can forgive yourself and share a little love with yourself. I hope you can see that you aren’t doing anything wrong.

And for these two minutes, I hope you have remembered how marvelously special you are, and how much this little green and blue planet needs someone just like you. And I hope you feel better soon because someone as special as you deserves care and love and comfort and joy.