 You know, I think that the saying is true, that people have said throughout history that you really don't know what you're made of until you really lose everything. You know, kind of three or four months ago, had a terrible breakup, my friend group was going in different directions, I suddenly had a very light schedule, whereas I was working a lot of hours for the last years, and then I'm going into the dark Portland winter, and I found myself in a very dark place, I mean in a dark enough hole that I was wondering if I was ever going to get out of it again. And in that time, I was trying to figure out what worked to get back to feeling like myself again. And I was doing all the things externally, working out and eating right and having hanging out with friends and it didn't make sense. And I stumbled upon one exercise that really specifically helps you deal with fear. And I want to share what that is in today's video. What's up guys, Alex Hine, author of the book Master of the Day. Now the first link there below is for a free journaling worksheet and an email series. So if you're working on reinventing your life or trying to get it all together and rebuild it, then check out the first link in the description, you can check out the journaling worksheet. So I came on this exercise of kind of rewriting a new story for yourself. You know, people often talk about visualization and affirmation, but I actually wrote out the new story I wanted to live. And I just repeated that to myself twice a day. So I'm going to walk you through this now and I'm actually going to read the story that I wrote for myself specifically more along the relationship quadrant of my life. Right now, neither of you are on the same page about what both of you want going forward in the future. So you can hold on and continue to have the pain, or you can move on and accept that yeah, maybe it will come around again. And you're going to have to decide to trust that if it's going to work in the future, that it'll work. And you'll meet again. You can't afford to sit around and do nothing and feel sorry about yourself. You have to commit yourself to still pursuing mastery in your life. You are going to rebuild your life. You're going to become and demonstrate what a resilient warriors life looks like. You're going to continue meditating twice a day. You will build new friendships. You'll find a new community. You'll build an other focused life and you will still follow the inner directive and follow what you feel like is your mission on earth. You have to keep in mind that you met at exactly the right time that it was orchestrated for both of you to help both of you. And for you, remember the silver lining that one day you're going to have a patient in your office, that woman or that man who maybe is in such bad pain. They're wondering if they should end their life or if it's ever going to end. And the true pain that you've experienced will help save that person's life potentially more than anything else you could ever say. Fearless faith, trust and surrender to the process. And no matter how little you've slept, whether it's three hours, two hours, no hours, get the fuck up and demonstrate the warriors life. So honestly, I mean, this is what I wrote for myself. You know, this is what I'm rereading twice a day. And I've done this at various points in my life for my business, if you feel like what you're doing for your work is never going to work out for your friend group, or maybe you just move to a new city or a new country and you're intensely lonely and things aren't going well. Write the story that you want like Marcus Aurelius every morning would go through these things. You're going to be met with these people that say these things, but you're not going to respond unconsciously. You're going to respond in this way. You're going to have faith that you're going to find a way through this whole. You're going to find a way out the tunnel. You have to trust that you're going to do something and it's eventually going to work and you're eventually going to feel like yourself again. So as you put together this story, there's a few elements to keep in mind. The first thing to keep in mind in your story is to write down really what you're feeling, like really write what your feelings are, what your fears are. Because when you feel shitty saying, I don't feel shitty, I'm not going to think about it. It doesn't work. You're feeling a freaking emotion that's a message. It doesn't work to affirm it away, right? I'm feeling shitty. That's the truth. So write down what you're feeling. I'm feeling like I'm never going to find someone like them again. I'm feeling like my work is never going to work out. I'm feeling like I'm never going to get out of this mountain of debt I built for myself. I'm feeling hopeless, stressed. I don't know what's going to happen. Write that out because that's the honest emotion you're probably feeling. The second thing is to write down whatever you're going to do to try and overcome it, right? I'm going to get a second job. I'm going to go to church every day if that's what it takes for me to feel good. I'm going to make sure I never miss a workout. I'm going to make sure that I just trust that there's some purpose here. I'm going to force myself to believe that, okay? Write down what you're going to do, the action you're going to take. And then finally, in your letter to yourself. Write down whatever thoughts, whatever ideas make you feel safe. So for you, the safe feeling may be I have friends and family I can rely on. So maybe you end your letter with you have tons of friends and family to rely on. You're safe. Maybe what it is is maybe being on medication. That's what your safety thought is. I can go to my doctor for medication. Maybe it's I can always take time off work or scale my hours down or get a new job or I have enough money saved. Or maybe I can just stay at my parents house for a weekend or a week and it with your safety thoughts. So at the end, at least your heart so to speak is at peace with whatever is going on and you feel okay. Now, the last thing here is you have to know, even though you don't feel it right now, you have to know with every ounce of your being that eventually it's going to happen that eventually you're going to get there. Like I know if you're depressed as hell right now, you're not feeling misinspired, you know, you're not like, I'm going to conquer the world. I can't wait to move across the country. Probably not feeling that at all. You're probably feeling intense fear, but you have to repeat yourself over and over and over again. I'm trusting a bit more. I trust that something is going to work out. I trust that eventually something will work because at the end of the day, it's that faith that when you're in the middle of the darkness, before you can see anything in your life changing, you have to have that faith before you see your life changing because that's what allows your life to change. So I hope that helps you guys. You know, at some point, everyone goes through one of those dark times. Maybe it's a week and maybe it's a year, maybe it's something you dance in and out of your whole life. But I found this letter exercise, just writing it to yourself about what you feel what you're going to do to overcome and what makes you feel safe right now. That by itself has been so transformative for me to just put yourself in the right state when for months at a time, you're not feeling like yourself and you're not thinking straight. So I hope that helps. Of course, another exercise that can work well is the journaling exercises I've included. It's the first link in the description there. You'll also get an email every couple days that'll help you figure out how to reinvent your life and kind of plot it going forward to build your most epic life. Check it out right there in the description and then check out my related videos there.