Dear Self,

No. Just stop. Stop.

Stop performing your life for an audience. Relax and let whatever comes out come out. You are not rotten. You are not broken. You are beautiful inside and it will all come out naturally beautiful. There is no impending judgment. Only this moment, right now. Where are you right now? Be here where your power lies.

Pick up the sword and start fighting the correct battle. You will win. All you have to do is show up. Stop running. Stand still. This is a good place to be. The sun is out. Amelia is cleaning her fur on the bed. You have a pen in your hand and it is moving. This is what you want. You’ve done it. There is nothing else to do but be here. Here is your strength. You don’t need anything else. Live here.

Stop building in imaginary futures and lamenting that you aren’t there. Build here. It will stick.

You have been so absent. No more! Your life is here and if you don’t show up soon they’re going to start auctioning off all your stuff. Nothing is wrong here, only in that place to which you’ve abandoned yourself. Turn off the mind for a little while and see what happens. This is a good time for it. Things are stable and everything can wait. Try living your life. You might like it.

Love, You.

Dear Self,

You are gripped by an anger that won’t let go. Your entire body is shaking involuntarily as your eyes stare off, unfocused, into the distant nothing. There’s a burning in the pit of your stomach, an ache behind your ribcage. It would be so easy to give up now.

It isn’t fair. It isn’t right. You deserve so much more than you’re getting. All of these things are true, not that it helps. You could blow it all up if you wanted to, and you’d be right to do it. Who could blame you after this?

Deep breathing isn’t working. Peace seems like an impossibility — not just now, but ever again. How could anything go back to the way it was? Maybe it was never that good…maybe you were just fooling yourself because you didn’t want to see this.

Anger is whispering dark words in your voice.

There’s no advice that will help today. Sometimes you just have to sit in a feeling with no escape, no relief. Feel it. Allow it. Listen to the voice and understand what it has to say. Whatever action you choose next will be authentic and it will be yours.

Love, You.

Dear Self,

You seem to have fallen into some confusion about how a husband treats his wife. Allow me to clear it up.

A husband carries himself with pride — know that you married up and take seriously the responsibility. A wife requires care and attention and deserves far more than that. She is your top priority.

Give her space. She is a different person than you and needs freedom. The less you direct her, the better. At the same time, do not be absent. She is with you because she fell in love with your personality, so make sure there is time set aside for fun.

When she is in the room, look at her. Don’t stalker-glare but make sure you’re not avoiding eye contact. Even if you are watching television together, look at her every few minutes and smile at her. Make sure she is seen.

Listen to her without interrupting or interjecting. Find something that she enjoys talking about and just listen. Don’t add anything to the conversation except curiosity-fueled questions. Ask her to tell you about something you’ve never cared to learn about — how she does her makeup, what she does on her drive to work, who last made her laugh. The better you know her the better you can love her, so put on your detective hat.

Notice whenever you tend to think of certain things as “her job”. She is not an employee, she is a sovereign queen. You can always help.

Be authentic with her. Hiding the emotions from her is lying to her. Do not lie to your wife.

Most importantly, love yourself as much as you love her.

Love, You.

Dear Self,

You struggle with the great distance between who you are now and who you used to be. You remember being so strong, brave, effortlessly happy. You had so much fun. It pains you that this current version of you seems flat, detached. Broken. You don’t know what happened.

Something changed you. When the struggle became overwhelming, you disengaged. The world obliged and disengaged as well. Now you feel lonely as well as broken. You miss your old self.

You are not alone. Not broken. You are changing.

Your current self has bright spots too, if you’ll see them. There are paths available to you now that were not before. In taking a step back, you gave yourself room to make choices. You were one thing, now you are another. Having seen both sides, you have learned to recognize the differences.

But none of it matters when you remember that there aren’t two sides. There aren’t two people, the old you and the current you- there’s only you. And the new thing you are becoming.

Love, You.

Dear Self,

It’s been a tough week. You’re tired and irritated and you don’t even know why. You can’t name the thing that has you so twisted up, which is how you know it goes deep. Just trying to understand what’s churning inside of you brings tears down your cheeks and that’s okay. It really is.

It’s okay. You sometimes feel so far from your goals that you despair of ever reaching them. You too often look back on your day and wonder how you could have treated people so cruelly or (worse) failed to notice them. You want to be a good, loving person so much. That’s beautiful about you.

Remember to treat yourself kindly as well. You aren’t letting anyone down and you don’t deserve to be punished.  Good things will come to you; not because you’ve earned it, but because you’ve built it. You have been placing brick after brick of pure loving intention for so many years. Punching a hole in the wall doesn’t devalue the house. Patch it up and get back to building.

The world needs you at your best. Make sure you give it to them.

Love, You.