"It’s okay to need other people. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to believe tomorrow could be better, even when it doesn’t seem that way."

It’s okay to need other people. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to believe tomorrow could be better, even when it doesn’t seem that way.

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of shame that floods the heart when you share a deeply intimate part of your story, only to be met with judgement. It’s a wound that leaves the kind of scar that never seems to goes away. You used to feel like you could trust them, but now that they know what lies beneath your many layers, they have become a distant stranger. Sometimes the judgment is direct. It’s an unhelpful comment that only makes you feel worse. It’s gossip that spreads lies like wildfire around you. Other times, judgment is silent. It’s a polite smile when you are face to face, while distance is slowly being created in the background. It’s an ignored text or an empty “I’m sorry” that makes you feel more alone.

And even though you know there are other people out there who are more caring and more understanding, you wonder if it is worth the risk to open yourself up in that way again. Is it worth it to try and figure out who you can trust? If it turns out badly, is it worth the humiliation and shame you faced, on top of everything you were already going through?

Being vulnerable is a risk. And you certainly do not need to be vulnerable with everyone. But you do need someone. You do need friends. You do need people in your life to remind you: you do not have to be ashamed for what you are feeling. It is not wrong to open up, no matter who made you feel that way. You were still courageous when you chose to exhale your story, no matter how it was received.

Wherever you are right now when it comes to your vulnerability, may you this to be true: your highs, your lows, your wounds, and your story are worthy of being received without judgement from others. No matter what happened in the past, there is still this present moment onward, where it is still entirely possible to make new connections that do not make you feel shame when you do not feel okay. Begin with your therapist, a trusted leader, or mentor. Begin with the one friend who chose to say. Begin with the one parent or sibling you know you can talk to. Your social circle may look a little different than how it did sometime ago, but there is still room for it to grow at a slow and steady pace, with grace, exactly in the way it’s supposed to.

You are allowed to believe tomorrow can be better. You are allowed to hope for healthy relationships and safe spaces to open up in an honest, grace-filled way. It might not seem that way when you look at the way the world is going. You might not feel this way scrolling through Twitter or in the overheard gossip at work. But you can know this in your soul. You can know deep within that even though vulnerability has led to shame in the past, it can lead to love and acceptance in the days to come. As long as you are still breathing, you haven’t seen everything yet. You haven’t met everyone yet. You haven’t seen the end of the road of how you will heal. You are still on a journey and it is lined with grace, and within that grace, there is room to hope that tomorrow, you will be okay. Even if it doesn’t seem that way today.

More tomorrow…

Sincerely,
Morgan Harper Nichols