At the beginning of this year, life felt so good — I felt a sense of flow, and everything was moving smoothly.
I had friends I loved, and family I felt close to. I was doing well in school and spending time with people who wanted to spend time with me.
Everything felt aligned, and for once, I was able to confidently say that this is what happiness feels like.
Like any human being who’s been through hard times, I wanted to bask in that goodness. I didn’t want to question it — I just wanted to live in it.
But somewhere along the line, the energy shifted.
I don’t know exactly what changed — maybe it was my mental health, my circumstances or maybe both.
All I know is that the job prospects I was excited about started to disappear. Relationships I was investing in started to fade. That sense of flow? Gone. Everything started to feel hard again — as if I was back in survival mode.
What’s strange is that nothing physically catastrophic happened, but everything internally began to spiral.
I went from waking up excited to not wanting to wake up at all — from laughing freely to crying so much that numbness became my default. The only two emotions I seem to experience these days are sadness and numbness.
It’s really hard to exist like that — when your mind becomes a prison, and your circumstances feel out of your control.
I believe we don’t have control over a lot of things.The more I try to force control — over people, situations or outcomes — the more powerless I feel. Because the truth is: I never really had control to begin with.
But when I stop resisting, when I let go — really let go — and hand it over to the universe, something always shifts. Maybe not immediately or in the way I expect, but somehow, it feels like things start to breathe again. It almost feels like life itself starts to breathe again.
I remind myself that life can be good with those things, and it can be good without them.
However, the loss is still very real. When something good leaves my life — something I waited so long for — it feels like the world is falling apart. It feels like nothing else matters — not the stable things, reliable things or even the people who are still here.
I get consumed by this one thing I’ve lost. It becomes all I can think about. And in that moment, I convince myself that everything else could fall away and I wouldn’t care as long as I could just have that one thing back.
It’s not healthy, but it’s honest.
I had high hopes for this year. January felt magical, I was facing problems with clarity and even when things weren’t perfect, I felt okay.
I was happy.
Then March came, and that light started to dim. By April, it felt like all the hopes and dreams I had for myself were dying. All the visions I laid out for the year — my goals, my plans and my optimism — felt as if they were buried before they had a chance to live.
And here I am, feeling guilty over how unhappy I’ve been. I feel that sense of guilt for so many things: for not being okay when things are technically “fine,” for crying or wallowing and for feeling stuck.
But you know what? Feeling bad about feeling bad gets you nowhere. Shame is not a motivator — it’s a weight.
Living for other people — especially the wrong ones — is one of the most painful experiences.
Believe me, I’ve done it.
I’ve put myself on pause for people who wouldn’t do the same. I’ve held my breath just to keep someone else comfortable, and I can definitely tell you that it never ends well.
We can’t wait around for the right people, the right job or the right timing to save us. It just doesn’t work that way. Like I said in my last piece: it comes from within.
But I don’t always follow my own advice. Knowing what’s “right” and doing what’s “right” are two very different things.
Healing isn’t a checklist. Some days I’m strong, some days I spiral and both days count.
In my Buddhism class, I learned that karma is shaped by our thoughts and actions. If we hold a positive mindset — even when things are bad — more good can flow to us. And I’ve seen that truth play out in my life.
When I’ve let go of scarcity and fear, things have shown up quickly and beautifully.
But I also can’t force that mindset every day, and I’ve stopped pretending that I can.
It’s okay not to be okay — it really is.
It’s okay to cry, to not want to go out or to feel overwhelmed by the weight of things that didn’t work out. It’s okay to rest in that and not rush the solution.
Because even when things fall apart, they slowly start to come back together — maybe in different ways or with different people — but they do come back.
Healing is not about being perfect or being positive all the time. Healing is about sitting in the mess and still believing — somewhere deep inside — that things can get better.
And the beautiful thing is: they will. They always do, eventually.
