Annabelle Blythe's debut poetry collection "The Unbearable Beauty—Poems and Practices for Being Alive," is now available. ✨

The Ivanhoe house was sold last summer to a lovely woman and her family. I like to think of the memories they’ll create there. I hope they feel the warmth, too. I pray they’ll sense that everything will be okay, too, and that they are enough as they are. Any five things. It can be something physical such as your eyes, or it can be behavioral, such as your patience for other people. Whatever you like that has to do with you, jot it down. And, if you can think of more than five, keep writing! 6. Write down five things you don’t like about yourself. ShopCatalog | Shop Books + Curated Products Moments To Hold Close by Molly Burford shopc/moments Buy e Book When we were clearing out Granny and Grandpa’s house, my cousin happened to stumbled across a note my Grandpa had written to himself: Get angry. Remember all their little quirks and the nuances in their voice that once lit you up. Let these things make you mad, annoyed. But know the whole time you’re lying to yourself. Know you still love them, their furrowed brow, their bursting laughter when something wasn’t even that funny. Lie to yourself until your throat gets sore.

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He doesn’t deserve to hear about your day. He doesn’t deserve to hear how you are. He doesn’t deserve anything from you and you owe him nothing at all. On Granny’s 80th birthday, we were all given tiny, glass bluebird figurines, a memento that watches over me on the shelf as I wash my dishes. When I glance up at the bluebird, I like to think of Granny bustling around in her own kitchen with the floral wallpaper, a place where we all spent so much time growing, loving, and laughing.

Exploring commitment questions, mental health trends, and more, Thought Catalog Magazine Issue 04 is available now. ✨ Take a look: Depression is seeing hope and drawing your shades shut anyway. Depression is hearing faith and turning up your music louder to drown it all out. Depression is believing those things were never meant for you at all. Enthusiastic listeners. People who don’t make you guess if they’re mad. Direct communicators. The friend who helps you clean your room. People who are kind to those who can do nothing for them. Messy folks who repeatedly get it wrong but never stop trying to get it right anyway. Kindred spirits. Loud laughers. Pals who make the grocery store fun. Loved ones who get as excited about your success as you do. The person you feel comfortable crying in front of. Sing-in-the-car friends. People who text you to look at the moon. People who text you just to say hi. The one you’ve known since childhood who you can go a long time without talking to but nothing changes. Those who understand the value of holding space. The mentor who pushes you to do better because they want better for you. Patient teachers. Healers. Scrappy souls. Hard workers. Friends you can joke about hypothetical situations with for hours on end. The genuine. Anyone who leaves you feeling good afterward, not just when you’re with them. People who see your fault lines and say they have them too. Anyone who came to mind as you read this. Hold them close. Love them hard. An Incomplete List Of Green Flags We all know the benefits of exercise, both physically and mentally. Find something you like to do, be it yoga or running, and commit to it. 10. Whenever the going gets tough, remember to practice compassion. In retrospect, being perfect seems awfully lonely. And it’s tedious. There are, I think, far more compelling ways to spend your time than to second-guess everything you’re going to do and wear and eat and say. And someone will love you for all the flaws you expose, anyway.”Seek Discomfort—A call to embrace challenges and push boundaries, reminding us that growth often emerges from stepping outside our comfort zones. The Unbearable Beauty: Poems and Practices for Being Alive is a collection of poetry and prose for when you are no longer trying to hide from the life within you. It is an excavation of the ground we find beneath ourselves when we are living in a way that is half-alive. It is a love letter to the invisible forces that keep us going. She noticed the good in me, too. And everyone, really. She understood people in a way most others do not. Realize and allow yourself be changed in tiny ways. Little parts of you will always be with them, and little pieces of them will always be with you. It’s okay they made an impact on your life, even if they didn’t stay. I wish I would have found my courage earlier. Every change I have ever made — beginning relationships and ending them, moving, again and again, altering and adjusting my work-life so that I had time and space for what I actually cared about, who I spent time with and didn’t, what habits and coping mechanisms I allowed into my life and then when I had to draw a line in the sand — it never came out of nowhere. It was always the inevitable end-point of a clear trajectory that I could see at the beginning. I wish I had found the grace and bravery to change course when I knew I needed to. I wish I had wasted less time. For anyone who has not yet been introduced to you and your work, what would you want them to know about both yourself and your writing?

Molly Burford’s book Moments to Hold Close is a collection of heartwarming and inspiring quotes and stories that aim to remind readers of the beauty of life and the importance of cherishing every moment. Depression is guilt. Depression is your worried and frustrated family who want to help but just don’t know how. Depression is desperately trying to explain what’s going on in your mind when you don’t even really understand it yourself. Depression is slowly drowning, over years and years. Every now and then you’re able to come up for air, but you’re still being dragged down by a current that’s out to get you and you don’t know what you did to deserve it at all. Wake up one morning feeling hopeful. Make some coffee. Read the news. Feel at peace. And then realize it’s because you forgot them, just for a second. Feel empty all over again. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior written consent and permission from Thought Catalog. In her own words, here is Brianna Wiest on everything you need to know about her latest release, The Pivot Year.

How To Manifest More Money This Month, According To Your Zodiac Sign—A unique take on manifestation, aligning individual financial goals with astrological insights. Recently, I found a box full of memories that had a note Granny wrote me for high school graduation in 2010. At that time, I was 18 and volatile and sad and stubborn and ashamed at the fact I couldn’t be any better and do any better either. There are many reasons why it can feel hard to be your authentic self. First, our authentic selves are our most vulnerable selves. It’s not as painful to have someone reject a version of you that isn’t who you really are. Second, we adopt a lot of our identity through osmosis. Human beings are so incredibly suggestible and adaptable, and this is especially true if we see external consistencies — we begin to believe that is the only way people can be. This is why it’s so crucial to expand your perimeter, your circle, your environment. It normalizes differences in a way that makes authenticity feel safer.

I am not trying to sound self-deprecating here, and I hope that this will come across clearly — I am just a person trying to figure it out. And I want for us to all figure it out together. I write what I have needed to read. What’s helped me and soothed me and moved me forward. And then I offer it up to whoever might need it next. I’m not special in the way that a lot of writers in my genre are. I don’t have any exceptional accolades, other than that I have felt deeply called to write my heart out, and have done it with all the truth and conviction I could muster, and have found the courage to share it, again and again, and I hope that when you read my words, you will realize that from one stranger to another… you really aren’t alone. Anything else you want the world to know about yourself and The Pivot Year ? Start to relearn yourself. Write down what you like to do, what fascinates you. Remember what it was that made you, well, you. Write letters you’ll never send them, and throw these pieces of your heart away. Listen to your favorite songs and maybe even sing along. See your friends again. Laugh sincerely with them. Realize how much love you still have in your life even though they’re gone. While the book covers every imaginable topic, it is particularly relevant for Generation Z and Millennials as Molly is writing from the perspective of a young person coming of age in the era of social media.

At Grandpa’s funeral, Uncle Gil gave the eulogy. He based it on the word happenstance , a phenomenon that truly defined Grandpa’s life. Things just always seemed to work out for him. He was always at the right place, at the right time. Depression is dirty, crumpled bed sheets and laugh-crying through the same episodes of New Girl over and over again because at least it’s familiar and at least it makes you feel a little less alone. Depression is looking in the mirror at your tearstained face that has mascara hugging your cheeks and wondering how you’re on the verge of 26 and still falling apart in tears so easily and so often. Depression is hating yourself for feeling like you’re unable to grow up. You’ll never meet anyone like him again, ” Mom said after he passed. She’s right; I know I won’t. None of us will. But the truth of the matter is we are all witnesses of happenstance, too.