Just a quick hit of love for you, today. Don’t ever give up on yourself. Not ever. Don’t give up on life, or love, or the possibility that you might forge a peaceful path for yourself. No matter how big a mess of things you might have made, no matter how incomprehensible a loss you’ve endured, no matter how confusing and lonely things may be right now, don’t give up. Life is going to bring everything.

We want the stuff that feels good — the love, the feelings of joy and delight and passion and excitement, and we resist the stuff that hurts; the pain, the confusion, shame, grief, loneliness, rage, guilt and doubt. But it’s all coming at us. Unless you’ve worked on it quite a lot, you’re probably going up and down with external conditions; happy when things are going the way you’d like and depressed, angry or bitter when they’re not. Life is under no obligation to give us what we want, to unfold the way we expect it to, to cooperate with our plan and there’s no power in being a victim of circumstance. You have the tools you need to figure it out. To put it back together again.

Underneath all the fear and resistance is love. You might need some outside help. There are some losses that are so knifing, just getting out of bed is a feat. Just remembering to breathe in and breathe out. I get that. Compassion for yourself is the thing in those instances when your heart and spirit are crushed and you think there’s no way it could ever be okay again. And, listen. Some things will never be okay. Accepting that is the key to moving forward, even if everything in you wants to head back in time to the before of the thing. For awhile, just brushing your teeth and taking a shower is a big deal. Just getting dressed and giving yourself time to feel all your feelings without rushing yourself to feel better.

But short of those losses, which are real and devastating and very difficult to comprehend, much of our suffering is coming from our thoughts. The ability to quiet the mind so you can get in touch with your intuition is so liberating. So you can tap that inner yes of yours. So you can live with your heart wide open and have the courage to say no to the things that don’t feel right. The mind is like a washing machine, spinning around and around, recycling the same thoughts, loud and full of shoulds and can’ts and there’s no way I can do that’s. It will keep spinning and spinning and send you in circles or keep you paralyzed by fear, feeling overwhelmed by all the noise. It’s relentless if you don’t gain some mastery over it.

When do you lose yourself? When do you feel that feeling of being so immersed in something there are no thoughts? For me it’s yoga, but for you it might be something else. Hiking, wind-surfing, cooking, singing or skiing. Whatever it is, make time for it because those are the moments when your intuition rises.

Have you made mistakes? I’d be shocked if you hadn’t. I’ve made plenty, some big. Mistakes are part of the growth process. Some of the biggest growth I’ve experienced has come out of some of the worst choices I’ve made. Sometimes you have to screw it all up so you can put it back together the way that feels right. The way that opens your heart. Did you ever take something apart and realize you can’t put it back together? You have no idea how the parts fit and the directions are lost somewhere very safe you put them so you wouldn’t lose them? And you sit with pieces in your hands and think, how do I do this? How do I put this back together so it works? The answers are inside you. You may need someone to kindly hold up a mirror so you can find them. To reflect back at you your own darkness and your incredible light so you can see yourself. So you can know yourself. So you can find your way. So you can sort through the pieces and let go of the ones that are blocking your ability to give and receive love.

It’s never over in this life until your final exhale. My feeling is, if you can do one thing, even one tiny thing like hold a door open for a stranger, your day was worthwhile because you contributed to a happier, kinder, more thoughtful, caring world. Start there if you need to. But don’t give up.

Sending you love and wishing you peace,

Ally Hamilton