Be Thankful For The Ones Who Broke Your Heart

Be thankful for the ones who broke your heart, for the ones who put you down, for the ones who told you that you couldn’t do it.

They’re the reasons you realized you could.

It’s way too often that we find ourselves overwhelmed by our negative feelings, consumed in the moment of something that we perceive to be so awful, so unsettling, so life-changing, that we fail to see beneath the surface. We become too preoccupied with these negative feelings that we’re blinded from the importance of the moments causing the feelings themselves, and we fail to see that there’s way more to them. We fail to see that, although in the moment it seems like our world is caving in, it’s actually doing just the opposite. See, in order for us to grow, in order for us to be challenged and presented with new opportunities, we need to be heartbroken, to be put down, to be told that we can’t do something.

Be thankful for the ones who broke your heart, because you wouldn’t have met the right one had they not come along, had they not taught you what you didn’t want, what you do want. Without them, you wouldn’t have realized that you deserve better, that you are better. You would’ve never visited the places, never would’ve met the people, never would’ve gotten the opportunities that you got because of everything you went through with them — because of every lesson they taught you along the way.

Be thankful for the ones who put you down, because had they not, you would’ve never learned how to stand back up. You would’ve never learned how to keep your head held high or how to let things go, how to decide what’s worth getting upset over and what isn’t. You wouldn’t have known how to stand up for yourself or how to stay true to who you are. You would’ve never understood the difference between criticism and jealousy. You would’ve never been able to decipher between who’s worth it and who isn’t.

Be thankful for the ones who told you you couldn’t, because without them, you would’ve never worked so hard to show them you could. You would’ve never been so determined to prove them wrong, but more importantly, you would’ve never needed so badly to prove yourself right. You wouldn’t have had to believe or come to realize that the only thing ever holding you back is you. You would’ve never been able to show yourself that you can do whatever you want in this world, and that you can do it damn well too.

So yes, in the moment it can feel like our world is caving in. It can feel like we’re losing our minds and that nothing will ever be okay again. And although our world may have been quite a bit rattled, there’s no sign of the ground breaking or the sky falling anytime soon. See, in the moment we need to take a deep breath and realize that the moments themselves aren’t all that bad, it’s just the feelings that come with them that are. We get so caught up that we forget that “bad” things need to happen in order for us to grow, in order for us to fully become the person that we want to be. We forget that “bad things” are a part of life and that without them, we’d get nowhere. We forget that not only are they not as awful as we make them out to be, but that they’re actually helping us through life. It’s way too often that we forget that there’s a rainbow after every storm, and that everything is going to be just fine.