How I Saved Myself By Surrendering When Everything Fell Apart

I always say this mantra when life gets out of control. You have to live in the now, now is all that is.

I spent a summer in college as a camp counselor and was separated from my fiance. When it happened, we broke up. He sent me a letter but kept no contact.

It took separation for me to see it. Eventually I realised he was abusing me. I realised I was alone in this relationship.

I had to realise life wasn't perfect. The summer of independence brought new love and loneliness to me, but it also made me realize that I had no soul mate who refused to listen to me. I have never been lonelier than when my soulmate refused to listen to me.

I had to believe in myself and move on. I didn't know how my life was going to go. All I could do was say the mantra of capitulation to the rollercoaster of emotions. That is what he said in a text.

I was left with nothing but the emotional closure I had been after all these years and nothing else. And that was it.

I woke up not knowing what to do. This fact scared me, but it also drove me on. I decided to be curious instead of trying to control it. I don't know how things are going to be, but I know how I can make sense of what's happening. I still didn't really know what was going on.

I want to teach young people how to surrender and how to do it gracefully and gracefully, and then get up again.

I thought my legacy would heal so much of my life. I applied to graduate school and started at Brandeis. I was the type of student who was president of four clubs and an honorary student. I was worried I was going to have heartbreak on top of it.

I put so much effort into making it work, but it didn't work. I didn't have time to love myself and didn't realise I had no choice but to let my ex go because I wasn't happy. I just didn't see the effort I made to work on myself as an obstacle to better things coming my way.

In other words, I stopped holding on to life. I surrendered to what I could do to survive and do well.

I went with the river and found myself in the river. I have learned to be happy for no other reason than who I am.

I stopped feeling pain and pain. I stopped waiting for someone to love me and decided to love myself. My whole life has been open to me. I practiced radical acceptance and realized that my place in the world was important.

I began to see that I was capable of being good no matter how much others abused me. I decided to let go and not give up. I promised to be authentic.

Sometimes life doesn't go as planned. I left the Brandeis MAT program I was teaching when I realized I no longer wanted to be an English teacher in high school. It was the hardest decision of my life but I don't have a backup plan.

I did what I had to do, over and over again, until I had nothing left.

I succumbed to the bad side effects of medication and terrible doctors. I had bipolar breakdowns and relapses and was in hospital for years. I surrendered to disability without expecting my life to change. I gave up trying to find other ways to help my youth. I surrendered to my life knowing that the hardest thing I have ever done was the best.

I wake up every morning knowing I'm alive. I am here to help others, to be there for others.

I didn't need a certain label or a certain popularity. I just had to be myself and rest. It all boiled down to the simplest things.

I realised I didn't have to look back. I could see that I had risen above everything in my own way.

I began to think about how I wanted to spend my time. As I let go of the need to keep control, I became more mindful.

I lost everything when I left Brandeis. The branding internship was at the same time that a brand manager and a great TV personality discovered me. It taught me to manage my own image, but I had no idea they wanted me as my own puppeteer. It was an achievement of authenticity, but nothing else.

I can live on my own terms and now take my life more seriously than ever, and I always will.

I didn't want to fall for the same red flags as my ex-fiance. I turned my back on the advances of men. I let go and surrendered to myself.

I decided to go my own way and live as a person, not as a brand, and share my story along the way. I used my mental health journey to end stigma by writing and sharing my insights into my life. I didn't let my brand or my managers distract me.

I didn't have to figure out what that meant. All I had to do was redefine what I was.

I can live my life as I am right now, right now where I am and who I am with.

My goal was to prove him wrong so I could do it on my own. It was about showing myself that I'm worth it. I focused on living in the moment and following my passions, rather than planning ahead.

But that wasn't the only thing I did. One day, walking my dog in the woods in my backyard, another purpose dawned on me. And that saved me.

I lay on the ground and looked up at the blue sky. I heard the birds chirping. I touched the bark of the trees.

I felt my inner voice waving at me to love this life for what it was, not for what I wanted to be. I didn't have to be here right now, at this moment. I couldn't be here now.

It only took the simplicity to make me realise that my goal was not a to-do list. That was what life demanded of me.

It's not a skill you should have. It's not something that can be fixed. It doesn't make things work if they don't.

When I took the time to think about my busy schedule, I realized that I had a purpose, was happy, and needed a reason to be here. I had to get off my "shoulders.". I found the gift of going where I was.

I would not have been able to get away from the injustices in my life. I would still have etched the loss I felt every day into my skin. I still had the anger that I was living with, from others controlling and abusing me. But I took on a different kind of bravery.

I grew up on eggshells surrounded by perpetrators. I knew what it was like to be alone. I settled down and saw the good in people.

It was an endless pattern that stopped when I was in my twenties. When my ex-fiance left, I found a new kind of strength.

I realised that the only power I had was the one I agreed with. Everything else was stolen from my heart. So I had to take certain things back. That defined me. I took back the power of forgiveness.

But it didn't have to happen over and over again until I did something about it, and then.

I mean, I love you, but notice that everything is dominated by fear. Fear is everything in life that leads you to face the very things you should avoid. If you are redirected to these things again and again, you will resist. You will find yourself in the same lesson you need to learn.

If you repeat something over and over again, you won't fix it at all.

I gave in to the universe and pulled my heart out of chaos. I was angry and hated those who thought I had stolen. But I decided to forgive them and set myself free.

They don't deserve it any more than I do. I let her go, surrendered and healed myself. I forgave myself, but I did not know who I was and did not see the truth.

My heart wanted to hold on to the anger, but I had no anger. I had to calm it down with self-pity.

I made sense of what happened in my life and helped others do similar things as I always do now.

There were dark nights when my soul felt like giving up, and suicidal thoughts came to my mind. That was the worst. I was in survival mode and didn't know how to let go and live. That meant saying goodbye to everything and everyone. And I didn't even know who to love anymore.

I retreated from the ruins of my old life. I rescued myself from the rubble of the storm without suffering. I realized that I was the one who decided my destiny. I was now the captain of my soul.

I found a way to take a detour. I realised I was going down the wrong path, but I was sure I was going down the right path. It was brilliant, authentic and uplifting, and I had to go.

I could look back on my life and see that nothing else mattered. Finally I could know who I really was.

I am here to share in the gift of being there for everyone else, right now, here and now.

I started volunteering, writing and speaking to young people and campaigning for mental health awareness. I stopped living with the stigma of my struggle and became more open to my story.

I stopped fighting every little thing that got in my way. I surrendered to what happened to me and did what I had to do.

I followed my path in the hope that others would follow and make it a little easier for me. I didn't have to know everything that was happening in my life because all the good things that were going on were touching me. The devotion calmed my mind and allowed me to resist letting go of everything I found and to lose everything.

In fact, it is one of the hardest things we can do. We all want everything under control. Giving up and seeing insecurity as something beautiful.

We do not always know what lies ahead in order to move forward. This is the first step towards resilience. You can improve the situation, share kindness, donate to a greater cause, become better at what you do, and build a better world. You could dream of doing something like that. But you can only do that if you surrender, stop fighting reality and allow yourself to live your life as it is.

Focus on the light you bring into the darkness. Focus on the beauty that is to be found in the broken situation around you, not on everything else.

It does not take away from you the horror of adversity, despite everything, to believe in yourself and your ability to make changes. This is something I took with me during his own time of mourning. It's something you can't let consume.

Tragedy hit you, heartbreak happened, someone hurt you, you couldn't let go, they were pointless. It is imperative that we do not ask ourselves why this is so, because there are so many.