- Wake up. Not just from sleep—wake from the ache, the numbness, the slow grind of disappointment. Rub the dust from your spirit. Remember: your heart is not broken, it is bruised, and bruises heal.
- Breathe deep. Inhale until your ribs stretch like arms reaching for something lost. Exhale everything that ever convinced you that love wasn’t for you. Let it go. Especially the parts that wore your name.
- Find a mirror. Look. Really look. Name three truths about what you see that have nothing to do with beauty. Speak them aloud. Softly. Like prayers. Like secrets you’re ready to believe.
- Forgive the past. Not because it asked. Not because it deserves. Because you do. Say it like a mantra: I release what no longer serves my becoming.
- Touch the earth. Barefoot if you can. Skin to soil. Let the roots of old trees remind you that survival is sacred and slow. Love moves like that—underground, unseen, growing still.
- Talk to yourself gently. Use the words you’d give to a child who cried over a scraped knee. You are that child. You are also the salve.
- Open your chest. Even if it creaks. Even if it’s scary. Especially if it’s scary. Let the world in again—sunlight, music, strangers who smile. Let it hurt a little. That’s how you know it’s working.
- Practice presence. With your tea. With your cat. With the way your skin feels under water. Be here for the small things. They’re the soil where big love grows.
- Write letters you won’t send. Say everything. Then say nothing. Then laugh. Then cry. Then burn them if you need to. Ash is fertile.
- Say yes slowly. To coffee dates, to dancing in kitchens, to letting someone hold your hand without owning it. Say yes like you’re planting seeds, not building a fortress.
- Be loved by yourself first. Wrap your own arms around your own torso. Mean it. Say, I got you. Say, I’m staying. Be the lover you were waiting for.
- Begin again. And again. And again. Love isn’t a destination—it’s a return. A remembering. A sacred repetition.
Now go.
Your heart remembers the way.