If you've ever thought things like "Why me?" or "What if... ?" here's another, more helpful question for you: now that you’re here, after all you've been through, what will you do? Instead of trying to change the past or escape the facts, this one simple question puts you in the present moment: where new life can grow.

Losing someone is an experience that reduces all others to dust. When it comes to healing from that, support comes in all forms. Friends, strangers. Letters, lyrics. Movement, stillness. The words you speak, even, can be part of your support system. It's why I wrote these affirmations. To give you ideas, to illuminate the shadow their death laid on your future.

This poem you're about to read is what inspired me to say: greet every experience like a chance or a teacher, if not a friend. Even sorrow has its light, beautiful things grow out of the worst times. Just ask anyone who's known loss, and who's taken that pain and used it for their own betterment, or in service to others.

A shattered heart needs to be held together, and prayer is an age-old ritual that can heal and mend the spirit like nothing else can, or when nothing else can. However you pray, even if you don't, I hope these quotes about prayer inspire you to open your heart, and to consider that, itself, a form of prayer.

Thinking about death doesn't need to be something we live our lives avoiding. There's a great fear of dying, but if we talk about it, and listen, we'd hear the truth: that "mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things." It's why I find solace in these quotes about death and dying, and hope you will too.

It's been 9 years since my brother's suicide. Life since then has been... everything. Heavy and light. Lackluster and full of wisdom. Somehow, still beautiful. I wanted to share some things I've given up and some things I'm still doing to take care of myself. May my self-help laundry list shed some light on your own.

May we have the courage to greet each new beginning (and each decision) with an open heart. Whether you need to start over or keep going, I hope this prayer inspires you to keep hope alive, to trust in love one more time, and to take care of yourself along the way. The best changes start on the inside, with you.

It could be a word. The way someone phrases what you could never put words to. A memory. Something you see in the sky, in the street, in someone's eyes. And just that one thing, in that moment, can spark change in your heart. It could mean the difference between who you've been, and who you're becoming. It could mean hope instead of fear, joy where there was pain—light in the darkness. It could mean everything.

When someone you love dies, you know how hard it is to grow through that. No matter how long it's been. If you're intent on making beauty out of the pain they left behind, but you still can't help thinking how good it'd feel to trade everything away, for just a minute more with them, here's a poem for that.

Okay, sometimes it’s a salt bath and a piece of chocolate. But real self-care isn’t set in stone. It changes as you change. It’s changing your focus, habits and priorities when what used to work for you doesn’t work anymore. And what you need right now, it’s not always pretty or popular.