INSPIRATION: "When you are hurt too badly, it changes you. Your pain and your heartaches determine what you become. You meet people with a certain sadness and you wonder why you can't be the person you were before. You open your heart less, your laugh seems to disappear after three seconds. There's this constant heaviness in your heart that seems to push you down and no matter what you do, nothing elevates you. You talk about your childhood too much, you invest yourself in the things you loved before because you know that they are your safe places, they are the only times when you were really happy and not in a way you call yourself happy now, not pretending to be happy. You know that you have become stronger, but you know that you have also turned cold. You wonder if this is fragility instead of strength because strength gives you the power to open, the power to love without walls. And the truth is that yes, strength lies in all of that but it also lies in choosing yourself before others, being cautious of who has access to you lately. Self-love is pretty hard. Sometimes, it will even make you feel lonely. But that doesn't mean that you will feel this way for a lifetime. You heart will be warm again, and you will finally learn to laugh for at least ten seconds. You will love people again with walls, and you will only open to those who will truly deserve your attention. And that isn't bad, that is true strength. But it won't happen in a day. And it won't happen if you are trying too hard to become what you were before. Maybe, you are not healing because you are desperate to be the person you were before your misery, your trauma, your heartaches. No matter how much it hurts, the truth is that person does not exist anymore. There's a new you, a better you, trying to unravel its beauty and you are trying too hard to control it. Maybe, that's why you are still hurt. When you see a beautiful sky, you do not ask for it to soften the orange, or saturate the blue. You just watch it with marvel as it unfolds over your head. Your new self is the same. Do not try to adjust and turn it into something else. Instead, breathe life into this new person and let it become and grow. Maybe then, you will finally know that healing isn't about overcoming the pain, it's about accepting and surviving it." — follow me on YouTube @Truly Steve https://youtu.be/ugSVIYSfcBs