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When all of the stress becomes too much. When the struggle to stay positive becomes overwhelming. When nothing in your own mind seems to be right. When everything I just said is true, to you, you pray for silence. Why? Because silence means peace. And how do you receive peace? Well, you decide there is only one way. So you take a sharp edge and see how far you can cut through. For some, a slight cut is enough to gain that moment of silence that you crave. For others, the cut must be deeper. Permanent. And, within that mix of “others” whose cut must be deeper, there are a few of you who cannot pierce deep enough. Thankfully. Though you don’t believe it at the time. You see, you are too weak to cut all the way through. You are too weak to die.

“Too weak to die.”

That sounds odd doesn’t it? But it is what you’re thinking when you cannot figure out how you are failing so miserably at gaining that silence you so desperately crave.

“You are too weak. A failure.”

This is what you’re telling yourself. I know this because this is what I’ve told myself. Somehow, and I’m not sure exactly how though, I’ve made it through the other side. And I’m here to tell you that, your notion of being too weak to die is not weakness, it is your strength. Your deep, core center, strength, your true self is who helped you back on that day. All of those days. I need you to know that you are stronger than you know. You are stronger than you think. You are stronger than you feel. You do not know me, but I am going to ask you to take a leap of faith with me. Trust me when I say, you are love. And love is not weak at all. So the next time (if there is a next time) that you bring that sharp edge to your wrists because you want silence and you break down because you just cannot do it, accept it and see it for what it truly is – your strength coming through. That moment, is pure love. That moment is your salvation.

So now what? You could not gain that silence you so desperately craved so what do you do? I’ll tell you what I did. Because I wanted death, I looked to life. And I don’t mean my life. Not the life of my friends or family or coworkers or strangers or dogs or cats, etc., etc. Nope. I looked to life in a leaf. Yea, a leaf.

I would pull off a leaf from any tree that was near me, sometimes several times a day. I would pull off a leaf at those moments when I wanted to go back and runaway. When I wanted to ball up and cease to exist. Every time one of those waves would come over me while I was walking to work, I would pull off a leaf from a tree. And I did this and thought, “If something can still grow despite all of the darkness, if something this tiny can serve a purpose, I will not let ‘it’ take me down.” What was ‘it’? I cannot explain it even to this day. I guess it was the despair. Maybe it was the noise I could not escape. Either way, I forced myself to find something, anything that seemed bright and alive for motivation. I felt I had nowhere to turn and no one to turn to that I looked for strength in a leaf. And thankfully, that first leaf and all of the leaves after it, saved me. I don’t know how many days in my life I needed to pull leaves off of trees but I do know that eventually I didn’t need to pull them off anymore.

Your day will come too. Please be patient. Trust me. Have faith. What else do you have to lose?

You are love.

You are strength.

You are not weakness. That day of failure was really a blessing.