If You Feel Too Much: Thoughts on Things Found and Lost and Hoped For, written by Jamie Tworkowski, the founder of To Write Love on Her Arms, is a collection of essays and blog posts written by Tworkowski. The book starts with the original essay Jamie wrote that kicked off the movement, called To Write Love on Her Arms, which you can read in its entirety here. That story and that event triggered a chain of events that lead to one of the largest suicide awareness and prevention movements in history. If You Feel Too Much is unapologetic in its relatability, its wit, its honesty, and its simple message: Hope is real. Help is real. Your story is important. If You Feel Too Much is a life-changing book. Here are ten lines from the book that everybody needs to read.

1. "You'll need coffee shops and sunsets and road trips. Airplanes and passports and new songs and old songs, but people more than anything else. You will need other people, and you will need to be that other person to someone else, a living breathing screaming invitation to believe better things."

This is one of my favorite parts in the whole book. This is so important. Solace is good but people are better. People are what will get you through to another day. People are what make you wake up for airplanes and coffee shops and sunrises. People are the true help we all need.

2. "We are meant to win and lose together."

"And something else hit me: What a powerful thing to love someone as they lose, to stand and clap and cry, simply to express, 'We see you. We're so beyond sorry. You matter. Your pain matters. The death of your dream matters. You are not alone in this moment.' And what a powerful thing to watch someone lose with grace, to watch someone hold on and let go all at once. We are meant to win and lose together."

This is important. This section tells us the importance of community and the importance of loving each other through the losses. It's easy to love someone when things are going well. It is difficult, but necessary, to love each other through the tough times, too.

3. "...God asks us to love, not just when it's easy and not just when a certain Scripture fits."

"i don't know a lot but i've come to believe the following: The world is broken. Our bodies break eventually. Our minds and hearts can break as well. We lose things in this life. We lose relationships. We lose people. And so a lot of folks live with a lot of pain. Much is mystery but God asks us to love, not just when it's easy and not just when a certain Scripture fits. What does it look like to love someone who lives in a place you've never been? When there are no words? Or what about allowing someone to love you when you feel completely alone, like no one can relate?"

God teaches us that we need to love everybody. Even if we disagree. Even if we haven't met them. As His church, we are to treat everybody with love as if we were bestowing God's love on them, because in some cases, we are the closest to church that people will ever come.

4. "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."

At the beginning of the essay Jamie wrote, To Write Love on Her Arms, he asked Renee (the recovering addict he and his friend spend time with before she enters rehab) what she would say if she had an audience. She said, "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars." Before she is dropped off at rehab, she finishes this thought, and it becomes a wonderful metaphor for life. Good things are there. Good people are around us. We just have to look.

5. "i believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love."

"We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. i might be simple, but more and more, i believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love."

This point ties in with point three above: We are the hands and feet of the church. We are the ones expected to go out and show His love to the people around us. We are called to love like Him. Jamie writes a lot about God and about religion. He writes about a loving and merciful Father who is always there to pick up our broken pieces.

6. "Love is a choice as much as it is magic."

"Love is a choice as much as it is magic. Magic comes in moments, but choices stretch out over time. We make them new each morning. In the first fall, they were magic. Then the seasons brought their storms, as seasons always do. Summer brought a winter. There was crying and silence and he would go away to change, for sometimes we have to lose a thing to find it.

Jamie writes candidly about his broken engagement and his struggles with romantic love, but I believe most of it can be applied to platonic love as well. His struggles and his words are something we can all relate to. Love is indeed a choice. The spark dies, and we must decide if we want to fan the embers or let the fire go out for good. It always hurts when the fire goes out. But like the phoenix, we all must rise.

7. "...people need other people, that our stories and our battles and our dreams, these things are meant to be shared."

"You should go [to the movies] to be reminded that our lives are also stories, the best of which involve someone fighting a battle. In Inception, the enemies are guilt, regret, pain, and shame. The movie serves as a reminder that these enemies unchecked will haunt and hunt you always. Thankfully, the movie also serves as a reminder that people need other people, that our stories and our battles and our dreams, these things are meant to be shared."

This passage is a good reminder that art can heal us as well. Music. TV. Movies. They can all show us that it is in fact okay to not be okay. That we can break down. But they also show us that it is possible to get back up every time and take on the bad guys again.

8. "It's better to be true than to be cool."

"[quoting The Fountainhead] i'll leave you with this from Roark's hero Henry Cameron, who he eventually works for: 'You love your work. God help you, you love it! And that's the curse. That's the brand on your forehead for all of them to see. . . . The substance of them is hatred for any man who loves his work. That's the only kind they fear.' It's better to be true than to be cool. Be yourself. Do what you love."

Something that I and many others have struggled with is the deep desire to fit and to be like everyone else, even if it means sacrificing what you really love to do. But our true calling is to do what we love and be the best we can be at it. That's what scares people. That's what wakes people up and inspires them to look at what they are doing and what they love and what the disconnect is.

9. "If you feel too much, there's still a place for you here."

"You are more than just your pain. You are more than wounds, more than drugs, more than death and silence. There is still some time to be surprised. There is still some time to ask for help. There is still some time to start again. There is still some time for love to find you. It's not too late. You're not alone. It's okay - whatever you need and however long it takes - it's okay. It's okay. If you feel too much, there's still a place for you here. If you feel to much, don't go. There is still some time."

The essay There is Still Some Time was written in the aftermath of Robin Williams' death. Robin Williams, comedic genius, forever clown, committed suicide after a life long battle with depression. Robin Williams felt too much, as so many of us do. He felt the only way out was to end his life. Like all of us, he had so much more to live for. He couldn't see that through the pain. But we have the chance to learn from his life and see that there is still some time.

10. "Hope is real. Love is real."

Don't give up. Don't give up on your story. Don't give up on the people you love. Hope is real. Love is real. It's all worth fighting for."

If you feel too much, don't go.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK