An account that I follow on Instagram called “We’re Not Really Strangers” posted this photo the other day. (Which, if you haven’t seen their work before, I highly recommend it. But that’s besides the point.)
(Credit to @werenotreallystrangers on Instagram)
And I’ll tell you what, reading those five words made me stop in my tracks. Because I think sometimes we are told too often to just look for the lesson when something or someone happens to you in life. We’re told to just figure out what the purpose of that experience was and then figuring that out will help us just let it go and move on.
But I think it’s more complicated than that. With things that have been happening in my life lately, I’ve given myself time to just earnestly look at the situations and experiences with those people and I can see all these things that I learned from those situations. I can see the “lessons” that can come from what happened and I can even apply them to my life in more meaningful ways. However, being able to know or see what a relationship or experience can teach you doesn’t make it easier to swallow when the memories come rushing back or you realize how much something really is effecting you. It doesn’t always make it easier to sleep at night or to let go of some of the hurt that they caused you.
So I like the way this post made me think about things.
Make it make you better.
Make the shitty experience or the heartbreak or the lessons make you work to be better. For yourself. Make these hard, gross feelings make you work harder for what it is you want to see in your life. Make the long nights of no sleep worth something. Maybe this means you’re keeping to yourself and letting your confidence on your own grow. Maybe it means making a schedule for yourself that you actually keep so you can meet goals that you want. Maybe it means throwing out the walkie talkie to someone else so you don’t have to feel alone in this new space. Maybe it means holding yourself accountable for your own feelings around the situation. Make it make you better. Don’t let the heartbreak be something that only drags you down. And it’s not because you shouldn’t be feeling all those feelings – you deserve to feel all that you need to and that’s valid. But the thing is, at some point you’ve got to make all those hard emotions work for you and not against you. Make them mold you more into yourself and into who you are wanting to be as your most authentic self.
This is a shorter post, but I had to share some quick thoughts on it.
Because damn, make it make you better feels like exactly the mantra that I needed in my life today. And maybe it’s the kind of mantra you needed to hear on this Monday morning too.
Thanks for joining me where you’re at. Thanks for leaning in a bit. I hope you try to look at the tough things happening in your life and see ways that you can use it to make yourself a little more authentically you.
Don’t be ashamed of being a work in progress. It’s okay if the growing pains get you down some days.
It’s going to be okay.
Talk soon.
allyson: a work in progress 
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