The Letter I Wrote to My Younger Self

Sometimes healing begins when you finally say the words your younger self has been waiting to hear.

There are moments when I look back at my younger self—the wide-eyed child, the restless teenager, the twenty-something who carried so much shame in silence—and I wish I could sit beside them. I wish I could place a hand on their trembling shoulder and whisper what I know now: you don’t have to fight so hard to be okay.

So, I wrote a letter. Not because the past will change, but because the act of speaking gently to the versions of ourselves that still live inside us can be one of the most powerful ways to heal.

This is the letter I wrote to my younger self.

Dear You,

I know how heavy it feels. The world looks too big, and you feel too small. You wake up with that knot in your stomach and wonder if anyone else feels this way—like everything could unravel at any moment. You don’t talk about it, of course. You keep smiling, keep trying to prove you’re strong. But I know the ache that lingers when the lights go out.

First, let me tell you something no one else did back then: you are not broken. The anxiety, the loneliness, the tears you hide—these are not signs that something is wrong with you. They are signs that you are deeply human.

One day you’ll read words from a woman named Pema Chödrön, and they’ll feel like medicine. She’ll remind you that pain is not an intruder but a teacher. She’ll say that the places that scare us are not places to escape but doorways into our own courage. I know right now that sounds impossible, but it will begin to make sense.

You think your job is to hold everything together, but life is going to fall apart sometimes. Friendships will fade. Loves will leave. Dreams will break. And every time it happens, you’ll feel like you’ve failed. But please believe me: falling apart is not failure. It’s the ground where you learn how to rise without pretending.

I want to tell you this, too: stop being so hard on yourself. I know you believe that if you’re just good enough—good at school, good at pleasing others, good at hiding your sadness—you’ll finally feel safe. But safety doesn’t come from perfection. Safety comes from knowing that no matter how many mistakes you make, you will not abandon yourself.

You won’t learn this overnight. You will stumble, shut down, and try to numb the pain. But slowly, gently, you will practice something called compassion. At first, it will feel unnatural—like trying to hug a stranger. But one day, you’ll notice that the stranger is you. And you’ll soften.

I want you to remember that it’s okay to cry. I know you lock the bathroom door and turn on the faucet so no one can hear. But tears are not a weakness. They are the body’s way of saying: this mattered.

You will discover that being alive is not about never hurting; it’s about letting your heart stay open even when it does. The world will tell you to toughen up, to protect yourself, to move on. But listen closely—your tenderness is not your downfall. It is your strength.

You will meet people who remind you that love is worth the risk. You will also meet people who break your trust. Both will teach you something important: that your heart can break and still keep beating, still keep loving. Don’t close it off.

And when you’re older, you’ll look back at yourself—the child, the teenager, the young adult—and you’ll realize: you were never as lost as you felt. You were simply finding your way, step by trembling step.

Writing this to you feels like a kind of time travel. I can’t erase your pain. I can’t go back and rescue you from the long nights of self-doubt or the mornings when getting out of bed felt impossible. But I can stand here, years later, and say: you made it.

And not only did you make it—you grew into someone who can hold pain without letting it define them. Someone who can sit with discomfort without running. Someone who can see brokenness in the world and still choose to love.

If I could give you one image to carry with you, it would be this: imagine your heart as a cracked bowl. You keep trying to seal the cracks, to make it look whole and unscarred. But one day you will learn that the cracks are where the light gets in. You don’t need to hide them. You need to honor them.

Younger me, if you ever wonder whether it was worth it—the tears, the struggles, the nights when you thought you were too fragile for this world—know this: every part of you that hurt became the soil for compassion. Every crack in you became a channel for love.

So here I am, writing across time, to tell you what you needed most: You are not alone. You never were. And even in a broken world, you can live with an open heart.

With love,

Your future self