A post shared by Waylon Lewis & Friends (@walkthetalkshow) on Jan 20, 2019 at 7:20pm PST

Let sorrow take you by the hand.

It is the temporary friend no one wants to see. Yet, you must let it in.

Let it shape you into your future self. We are all pulled apart and reshaped by our experiences, like ink being dropped into water. Watch it disperse into dancing waves. This is you.

There is beauty in the metamorphosis, but I know it doesn’t feel that way right now. It feels wretched and sore and raw to your delicate heart. One day you will look back on it with new eyes and see just how magnificent you are for getting through it.

When your eyes are so red and stinging with constant tears, and you feel like you cannot go on, let sorrow do its work. It is a wave that crashes through you. Don’t resist it.

Let the process happen.

Let the tears fall.

Let your primal screams be heard from the depths of your soul if need be.

When you feel that there is no hope left, I am here to tell you that you can get through this. I know that you can because I did. And if I can still be here, not just existing, but living, not just breathing, but savouring moments and creating my life, then so can you.

When we deal with sorrow, we deal with moments. We often wonder how many moments we can withstand the crashing wave of sorrow because we are running out of breath.

My advice is this:

If you can get through the morning, you have made it past the first hurdle. Breathe through the ebbs that sorrow allows and regain your strength for the next wave. It is not unlike childbirth in that way: in the midst of a contraction, you wonder how you will get through the pain, but you do. Then comes the silence in-between, to rest in preparation for the next phase where you are at the mercy of another force that is greater than yourself.

If you can get through the morning, you can get through the afternoon. Soon the days begin to pass.

Throw yourself into work if that’s what calls to you. A distraction is okay and sometimes necessary to stop you being engulfed completely. But in the quiet hours, when your children are in bed, let sorrow in. Allow it to flow and cleanse the pains of your heart. This is the process.

No one gets away with blocking sorrow out.

Sometimes your brain will file it away until you are strong enough to deal with it. When the time is right, it will surface. Let it.

It will always be knocking quietly on the doors of your heart if you do not process it. So, be brave and open the door. Invite sorrow to sit with you for a while and grieve for the thing that you have lost. Strength comes from facing the issue that you do not want to face.

Don’t underestimate how much your human existence can stand. You are not rigid by nature. Do not try to be rigid now, or sorrow could break you. You must bend to accommodate sorrow because it is meant to change who you are.

This is not punishment, it is only experience. None of our experiences are truly good or bad, they just are what they are: a compilation of lessons designed to expand us emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. No growth ever came without some degree of pain or sacrifice.

I have withstood many sorrows since my childhood, and one that almost ended my existence. Sometimes I wonder how many times a person can break and survive. My conclusion is that a person is limitless: the universe is within us all.

I see the scars on my body and look at them with love. They were my expression of sorrow for a shattering loss in my life. I never thought I would get over this loss, but I did. I realised that the pain can’t last forever, and this is what I want you to know.

Every experience and emotion is temporary, and your sorrow will one day recycle into something new. Emotions are energy, and energy continues to evolve and change, just like you, and just like those ink droplets in a glass of water.

You may have lost someone or lost a piece of yourself along the way. It will be okay, sweetheart. I promise. Just hold on.

Embrace the gifts hidden in sorrow. Honour the angry tears, the fist that crashes down upon the table, the quiet moments of numbness that spread through you.

You will never forget this sorrowful time, but one day you will be okay again.