When You're Ready, This Is How You Heal

by Brianna Wiest

What if cleansing your mind with hopeful, joyful, positive thoughts is the rebalancing that’s been long overdue, after so many years of existing solely within the most negative interpretations you could come up with?

What if, after an entire lifetime of being sold the idea that the point of your life is to exist as perfectly as possible, you could now open up to the notion that perhaps you are, instead, here to enjoy the ride while you’re still on it?

It is the hardest thing you will ever have to do, and it will also be the most important: stop giving your love to those who aren’t ready to love you.

Stop having hard conversations with people who don’t want to change. Stop showing up for people who are indifferent about your presence. Stop prioritizing people who make you an option. Stop loving people who aren’t ready to love you.

I know that your instinct is to do whatever you can to earn the good graces of everyone you can, but that is also the impulse that will rob you of your time, your energy and your sanity. When you start showing up to your life wholly and completely, with joy and interest and commitment, not everyone is going to be ready to meet you there. It doesn’t mean you ne...

If you’re left out, subtly insulted, mindlessly forgotten about, or easily disregarded by the people you spend the most time with, you’re doing yourself an incredible disservice by ...

But the longer you spend trying to force someone to love you when they aren’t capable, the longer you’re robbing yourself of that very connection. It is waiting for you. There are billions of people on this planet, and so many of them are going to meet you at your level, vibe where you are, connect with where you’re going.

That doesn’t mean you ruined a relationship. It means that the only thing sustaining a relationship was the energy you and you alone were putting into it. That’s not love. That’s attachment. The most precious, important thing that you have in your life is your energy. It is not your time that is limited, it is your energy. What you give it to each day is what you will create more and more of in your life. What you give your time to is what will define your existence.

When you realize this, you’ll begin to understand why you’re so anxious when you spend your time with people who are wrong for you, and in jobs or places or cities that are wrong, too.

You’ll begin to realize that the foremost important thing you can do for your life and yourself and everyone you know is to protect your energy more fiercely than anything else. Make your life a safe haven in which only people that...

It is not your job to show up for people and give away your life to them, little by little, moment by moment, because you pity them, because you feel bad, because you “should,” because you’re obligated, because, at the root of it all, you’re afraid to not be liked back.

Decide you’re deserving of real friendship, true commitment and complete love with people who are healthy and thriving.

Don’t be afraid to disengage. Spend less time on your phone, decline events that make you feel drained at the end. Remember the sacredness of your energy and attention.

Pause before you react. You are allowed to be angry, but you will want to be mindful of allowing that feeling to make you take action that could impact your safety or quality of life for years to come. Write yourself a note in which you outline exactly what to do when you have a panicky feeling. When you’re thinking clearly, tell yourself what to do when you’re not.

Remember that you’re mortal. All of this will pass. No time is guaranteed. You are not stuck forever. Life moves quickly and it does not stop. You are only here for a moment. Try to savor it as much as you can.

Infinite versions of you exist.

There’s the person you were yesterday and the person you are today. There’s the person you were five years ago and the person you will be in another ten. There’s the person you were this morning and then the person you’ll be tonight.

There’s the person that exists within the minds of each person you know and meet and come across and love. Every single one of them has a unique image of you in their minds, informed by their own experiences and preference...

When we feel most stuck, it is often because we are trying to decipher who we really are by piecing together images we assume others have of us. What we don’t realize is that there is not just one, singular version of us that exists. There’s our experience of ourselves, and then the kaleidoscope of ways we are perceived by others. When we spend ...

You’ve been more accepted than you remember—more appreciated, and validated than you know. More people saw your potential than you realize. They liked you more than you believe. You were more wanted than you think—by friends, by family, by potential lovers who longed for you in ways you probably never would have imagined in the first place.

When the people closest to you look at you, they see far more of your greatness than you ever would looking at yourself.

You’ve made a bigger impact on the world than you realize. There are more hearts you have soothed in moments of grief, more minds you have inspired to see hope where there was once defeat. There have been more instances where one kind, selfless act cascaded a ripple effect across the entire world. Your love has...

We are not summarized or defined by any one instance or experience. The static, singular image we think others have of us in their minds—it’s usually a projection of our greatest hopes and deepest fears.

We are in no way forever limited, or permanently defined by who we were in the past.

Allow this knowing to free you. Allow it to help you see that there is more dimension, more contrast, more nuance, and more goodness within you than you have ever allowed yourself to believe. You have done more, seen more, and meant more to others than you could ever know.

Even if it seems like the “rug was pulled out from under you,” it wasn’t. This thing most likely hadn’t been working for a long time, and you were in denial. Your delusions and dreams about how it would transform into something you want it to be are just that—unreal.

Our lives are very often a reflection, and extension, of ourselves. We can run to the ends of the earth and still not feel whole because what we were looking for was a reinvention of the way we see, what we perceive, and how we feel. That’s work that starts right here, and right now.

The point was never that you adjusted everything around you until it was made perfect, but that you adjusted the way you see everything until you realize that it is enough, and it always has been.

It’s about affirming what you want to be true, and knowing, somewhere deep down, that it already is. It’s about visualizing your future self and being willing to believe that maybe, just maybe, that person could be real. It’s about standing up for yourself when it’s necessary, and recognizing all of the times when you’re misinterpreting a mindless comment as a slight. These things all require deeper levels of self-awareness, evaluation, and consciousness.

It’s about recognizing that the heat of your trauma is trying to prevent you from living your life. Somewhere, deep down, you know that when you go out and try to make your way in the world, everything goes wrong. So your fear is trying to lock you down, and it’s trying to keep you safe.

It’s about choosing not to give your mental attention and emotional energy to things that will not grow into experiences you want to be having. It’s about realizing that you can construct a new dream. It’s about releasing who you are, in the smallest ways, and realizing that sometimes, the most ordinary things are the most defining, the most saving, the most soothing, the most important, the most overlooked, and the most real.

“This moment is not your life, this is a moment in your life.” — Ryan Holiday

Everything that is truly right for you will happen serendipitously and spontaneously. It will come to you when you expect it and when you don’t, as both a surprise and a certainty. It will seem like such an obvious fact of your life and yet entirely new, all at once.

experiences once I’ve extracted the lesson from them.” You don’t have to keep ruminating.