If I could have seen every curveball life threw at me as a chance to practice being stronger, I would have been accruing wisdom and clarity that I could have put to the test when things really got harder. And they did get unbearably harder at some point.

But when I hit the rock bottom, I knew I had to learn to breathe and stay relaxed. I wanted to be able to deal with life’s ups and downs with Strength and grace. I realised becoming mentally and emotionally strong was the only way to survive, but I knew it wasn’t something that would happen overnight. Over the time I journaled my struggle, my failures and my victories. I have listed some of the things that helped me float back up, below

1. I had to be emotionally resilient. I used to live with my heart on my sleeves. I was being picked on, being bullied by my peers and made fun of for my pain and suffering. I knew if I had to be emotionally and mentally strong, or resilient, it meant adapting well to things like stress, trauma, adversity, or tragedy. Resilience is not something I was born with — it was a process that I had to learn over the time.
   • Being emotionally strong didn’t mean I didn’t experience pain or suffering — I learnt resiliency when I was faced with an extremely painful situation. It taught me how to rebuild and “bounce back” from those experiences.
   • To develop resiliency, I had to focus on building particular skills, such as: making plans that were for my well-being, happiness and carrying them out, developing confidence and a positive view of myself, learning to manage strong feelings and impulses which is still a struggle. And also learning to communicate and solve problem efficiently without adding to my existing troubles.
2. Learnt about emotional regulation. Something I have been blamed for forever is being outright and rude. I have never been able to hide my reactions, my inhibitions or views. Learning to manage my emotions was a very important part of becoming emotionally and mentally strong. I may have not been able to control what life threw at me, but I realised I always had a choice about how I could react. Again, this was something that was not innate; I am still learning to manage my emotions productively.
3. Areas that I wanted to change. Before I could build up my mental and emotional strength, I needed to take an inventory of my strengths and challenges to determine what I would like to change. Made a list of as many of my strengths and challenges as I could think of. I figured out how to turn each of my challenges into a goal that I had to work towards.
4. Acknowledge my strengths. In addition to identifying areas for change, I took time to celebrate my strengths. I read through the list of my strengths and congratulated myself for these positive traits. I am organised, focused and authoritative (Some might not agree its a strength). I also occasionally gave myself a little pat on the back now and then. It helped me to stay focused on my positive qualities and help build up my mental and emotional strength.
5. Consider my past experiences. The reason why I felt like I lacked mental or emotional strength may be linked to something that happened to me in the past. Few of these things happened just a few months ago and some when I was very young. Loosing grand parents, weeks in hospitals watching helplessly your parents in pain, loosing friends to the social politics added the weight to the blow that made me hit bottom. I did what one does when he is drowning, try every possible trick to stay afloat. But what helped me the most was
   • I tried to determine if some negative social experiences were contributing to my mental and emotional state. I even considered how and why those experiences may have affected me the way that they have.
   • I analysed those experiences in order to fully understand them, deal with them, and move on.

6. I identified an addiction that required treatment. I identified an addiction that may have been damaging my mental and emotional strength. I realised I was addicted to the company of people who were damaging my mental and emotional health. They were people with negative thoughts, who were pulling me down. I haven’t been cured of it but I will keep working on it.
7. Maintained a journal. Journaling helped me to understand what had caused me to experience these challenges, and it is also was a great way to relieve stress. I have a dear friend to thank for this. She got me started with journaling, I choose a comfortable place and devoted about 20 minutes per day to writing. I started writing about how I was feeling or what I was thinking. I used these prompts to start with..
   • “I feel powerless when…”
   • “My biggest challenge is…”
   • “If I could talk to myself when I was a child, I would say…”
   • “When I am feeling low, the nicest thing I could do or say to myself is…”

I know I am not there as yet… but I have grown emotionally stronger and also wiser. Losing someone made me realize that you must live in the moment. Tell the people you love that you love them now — don’t wait. Tell your friends that they mean something to you. Tell people when they hurt your feelings, fix friendships that should be fixed, don’t hold grudges because you honestly don’t know what the next day will bring.

Remember that you, and only you, will be ready when you feel it. You will be happy again. You will learn to live again once you are mentally and emotionally stronger. Broken crayons still color, and I am here to say that I am living proof that life has knocked me down many times, but here I am standing up again, proof that broken crayons still color, and that you will be mentally and emotionally happy again. I promise.