You had a bad day.

A terrible day.

Or maybe you had a bad week. A terrible week. Or perhaps it was a bad month or a bad year, or you’re just feeling like Eeyore lately like there’s a black raincloud following you wherever you go. You can’t seem to get away from the rain, and you cannot seem to find shelter from the storm, and it seems as if you’ll never know the feeling of sunshine on your skin ever again.

You try to shake this feeling – but you can’t.

You feel as if nothing will ever be ok ever again.

Perhaps you experienced heartbreak.

Maybe it was a heartbreak that you didn’t see coming, and the pain of it has shattered you into a million pieces. Perhaps you had thought that you had found your forever human and that you were going to spend the rest of your lives together, and you were going to have 2.5 kids and a house with a white picket fence. Or maybe you thought that the two of you were going to travel the world, hand in hand, and have adventures that other people only had when they went to the movies. Maybe you didn’t know what your picture of forever looked like, but you knew that it included this person, by your side, and now they’re not going to be there with you, and it’s thrown you off your axis. It’s hurled you to the ground, and now you feel like you are broken beyond repair.

Maybe your heart wasn’t broken by a breakup. Maybe your heart was broken because someone you loved deeply is no longer living. Perhaps the death of your loved one has rocked you to your core. Maybe you cannot see how you could possibly climb to the other side of this mountain of grief. Maybe getting up out of bed requires too much energy. It seems impossible to stand, let alone put one foot in front of the other.

Maybe your heart is ok, but your head hurts.

Maybe your dreams are broken. Perhaps that means you failed at a project or a new job, or a further step in whatever work it is that you do. Maybe that failure has hit you in the gut and cause you crippling anxiety and hesitation when you even think about starting once again. Maybe that hesitation whispers to you that you’re not good enough, and that your ideas will never be good enough and that the thing you should do is to put your dreams in a box and bury them.

Maybe you don’t know why you feel like nothing will ever be ok again. Perhaps it’s not a singular heartbreak or moment of disappointment. Maybe it’s been a bunch of tiny moments of sadness, and heartache, and frustrations that you buried under the surface, that are now coming to the surface. Perhaps you shoved your feelings aside for so long that they currently are overwhelming you to the point of despair.

Or maybe it’s something else.

But, whatever it is that you’re facing, I hope you know that you will get to the other side of it. You have it in you to climb the mountain of grief. You are capable of putting the pieces of your heart back together. You don’t have to keep your dreams on a shelf, or locked away in a box, or buried six feet underground – even when you inevitably hit a roadblock, or fail.

You can get back up.

You can heal.

You will feel the sunshine upon your skin once again. Things will feel ok again, too.

Let yourself feel the breaks and the pains, but please don’t let yourself give up on you.

I believe in you, and I hope you believe in you, too.