Mistakes are the scariest things about adulthood. Everything quite literally could cause you your life or the quality of it.  The weight of mistakes gets heavier as we get older. We unintentionally pile on everything we have learned, what we think we should know, and the expectations of society with every misstep. Making the preverbal baggage impossible to carry.

If you are like me, life is the best teacher. Learning the hard way has been my specialty. Not always by choice, I might add. Nonetheless any time I make a mistake I drift all the way back to this dark unhealthy place of what I’ve been through, what I put myself through, and what I should be better at by now. Carrying the weight of guilt, shame, disappointment, and loathing. Wondering why I can’t sleep or eat. Wondering why breathing seems to be an impossible task and allowing my baggage to crush me quite literally.

If this resonates listen up…

Happy and healthy is not this trophy you get at the end of the race. It is a state of existence that you get to strive for. Something you never stop seeking. If you could hold on to one thing from me let it be this, you deserve grace. You deserve to be so gentle with yourself. Here’s how…

Isolate events. Nothing you have been through or done deserves to be used against you in the next thing. Fight fair with your mind, be what you require from others. Do not come to battle with a loaded gun, finger in the trigger, pointing at you. You shouldn’t know better, otherwise you wouldn’t have needed to learn the lesson. No situation is the exact same, only feelings are. Feelings trick your mind to see emotionally, you will drown every single time.

Mistakes don’t define you. Make them then make them mean something. Let your mistake take you low, feel that self-pity. Then use it to as fuel to never need to feel it for that reason again.

Mistakes are just that, and as an adult you get to make them. You deserve to keep learning, keep striving, keep being better. Emotions are powerful, and you must master them. The situation isn’t the same, the feelings attached to it are. Making you replay other events, beat yourself up, and tricking you into “I’ve been here before”. Different situations will arise, triggering the same emotion until you master it.

Master who you are at your very core.

Be better, be stronger, be brave enough to admit your emotions to yourself and feel through it. Replay the mistakes and what you would have done different. Then come to peace, and never use it against yourself again. Happy and healthy is your state of existence, and mistakes don’t get to take that away from you. They don’t get to define you. You are the lessoned learn, not the mistake necessary to learn it.

You deserve grace.

-Dark doesn’t exist, it’s only the absence of light. Shine. 

This is easier said than done, with help giving yourself grace visit http://www.raquelsturn.com I’ll see you in the safe space.