heal. Previously, I used to wake up and monitor how I felt and spend all day trying to do something about it. I finally accepted that when I woke, I would feel tired and anxious, my mind would probably race and that I would feel odd and detached for most of the day. I would not ignore it or pretend to like it, but for once I was not going to try

We built walls in a time when we thought that anxiety itself was a threat to life, but the reality is we can both tolerate and learn from it. We can live with not being liked, we can survive being misunderstood, we can make mistakes, we can feel bad. Having released the goal of avoiding discomfort as much as humanly possible and by any and all

“Acceptance is now a regular part of my life,” she told me. “It’s realizing that not every day is going to be perfect, and that’s okay. It’s about being humble. It’s about constantly knowing where I am. I feel a deep freedom that comes from acknowledging my pain, my flaws, and my failures, and moving forward anyway,” she says.