Maybe you're here right now reading this because you lost someone you never expected you would lose. Or maybe you're here because you've lost yourself. Sometimes that's even worse. Maybe you've had a bad day and it just won't let up, or multiple bad days in a row that just keep coming. Whatever the reason may be, I'm glad you're here.

I hope you can look in the mirror and remind yourself of what you are and what you are not.

You are not your mistakes.

You are not damaged good or muddy from failed explorations.

You are not the opinions of someone who doesn't know you.

And you are most certainly not your past.

So do yourself a favor and stop living in it.

Because what happens when you live in the past?

The darkness creeps in and fills every crack in your broken body.

The memories flood your brain like a tsunami.

The memories haunt you like a ghost living in your soul.

Everything in you aches.

The past is the past,

nothing can be changed now.

However, the past is only a small fragment of you.

It is an old part of you that no longer exists.

Do not let the past define you, let it help you and guide you.

You are not your past, you are not the things that have happened to you, you are not the people who have touched you, you are not the people that have corrupted your life, and you are not the mistakes you have made.

But you are your present and future.

You are simply and beautifully you.

You are what you make of yourself.

You are that bright future ahead of you.

You are all great things in this world wrapped into a single body of flesh.

You are an amount of greatness that most will never obtain.

You are the product of the lessons you've learned.

You are wiser because you went through something terrible.

And you are the person who has survived a bunch of rainstorms and kept walking on.

I now believe that pain makes you stronger.

And I believe that walking through a bunch of rainstorms gets you clean.