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If you suppress a negative emotion, you never give it the chance to peak and crash and you reinforce the idea that there are emotions that should be avoided, giving them the power that we fear. You just end up dragging yourself sideways in an unnatural way and causing yourself to experience discomfort for longer than necessary. Unknowingly I had stumbled across a real solution to chronic anxiety and stress. None of my methods for trying to be happy worked as well as letting myself bathe in pure and absolute sadness and anger for a bit. After an intense night of pure catharsis, I was finally on the path to freedom. I sunk back into a deep dark place once again, but without putting in any significant effort into "trying" to be happy, the negative feelings subsided and were replaced by positive ones. This continued to happen at a rate of decreasing negative time and increasing positive time. 

 

Once you embrace your fear, it dissolves. I know that's cliche, but once you 

experience it firsthand you can confirm its truth, surpassing the cliche and seeing it as genuinely valuable.

 

If you let your emotions ebb and flow with life it helps you to maintain perspective. I recommend that you consider welcoming negative emotions, but let them go when happiness takes their place. Likewise, when it's time for happiness to leave, don't chase it or push away the inevitable negative emotion. In doing this, you subtract the suffering from the equation. Happiness will always come back in one form or another. Don't get distracted preparing for it to leave. We only suffer when we try to fight what's happening.

 

You have to just let loose on your life and reduce all of the friction from trying to bend it to your will. Just experience it. It'll all go your way when you realize that no matter what's happening, it's going "your way".

 

Reduced friction = reduced suffering, and reduced suffering = reduced stress. Reduced stress helps you reduce friction, creating a loop that you have to kickstart by stepping back and letting go. Experience everything with a similar optimism.

Going into my relationship sparkly, innocent, and confident and ending up cynical, exhausted, and antisocial taught me how to be happy, as weird as it sounds. I needed to see my shadow and I needed to see a full 360-degree view of my personality because I needed to experience my negative side to really understand my positive side. We can all find closure in knowing we are very much okay, regardless of how we feel at that moment, and take comfort in knowing that your emotion doesn't determine your reality. 

 

For your sake, I hope you experience something similar to learn something about yourself and understand life in a way nobody can teach you, but go about it with complete and unwavering respect for yourself. Be mindful first, over anything.

I detailed this to prove that an intense and unpleasant experience taught me what some people never know and because of that, I'm more than grateful I got my heart broke :)  

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I'm confident that anyone reading this is capable of taking advantage of a difficult experience in the same way.

 

I'm still learning every day and have infinite things to be wrong about, but so far, it all makes sense. I am very optimistic about the life experience I have built a foundation for and I owe it all to the adversity.  

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Thanks  for  everything,  M.  Truly.

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**During this time I had a pair of shoes and a specific hoodie I had just purchased that would help me remain aware of the major changes that were taking place. I remember driving up to Burlington, VT to visit my friends and turning around when I was already almost an hour into my drive because I forgot the new hoodie that I knew would give me a certain confidence that made it easier to be social (part of this is because the hoodie was $115 which just made it fun to wear lmao. I had zero interest in keeping it pristine so I enjoyed the freedom of wearing it whenever I wanted and not just whenever it was safe). I never told anyone anything about it and to be honest I was only fully aware of my relationship with the hoodie after the fact. Wearing it had a profound impact on my ability to focus on my personal growth by subtly linking a mindset with something physical and easily accessible. The confidence came from the comfort of knowing that any anxiety I felt was just a piece of a puzzle and that I was learning from it. These clothing items helped me keep all of that in mind. Once the fear genuinely went away, anxiety had no power over me. 

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This relationship with my hoodie motivated me to create possibilities for others to experience something similar.