Letting go is the hardest part... but you have to look at it through their eyes and realize the pain you caused them is that same pain you feel now.

What would happen if people practiced openness and honesty? If people talked about their real challenges without shame or fear of rejection? My guess is that people would feel less alone and isolated. People would be willing to share more, and as a result, society would feel more connected to each other and their experiences.

Letting go is the hardest part... but you have to look at it through their eyes and realize the pain you caused them is that same pain you feel now.

I think it can be incredibly powerful for a teen to be able to put their story out there for others to soak in, learn from, relate to. In some ways, it validates their experience, which for teens (or for anybody, really) is a pretty huge deal.

We have a society that is going through life not talking about what's really hard about life and trying to pretend like everything's great when it's not. As a result, people feel more and more isolated.

I think about what I wish I had known when I was a teen and tween. I struggled with a lot of insecurity and self-doubt as a young girl and the side-effects of that were long lasting, well into my late twenties.

The thing that got me through the worst of my teen years was running and the piano.