If you’re anything like me, music plays an insurmountable role in your daily life and general emotional landscape. So when RAYE released, This Music May Contain Hope, I think she knew exactly what the world needed right now, and every note of that album takes a small step towards healing the cracks between us. Not to make them disappear, but to fill them with gold and make us stronger than before.

Life is not about the absence of struggle or pain, but rather who we become as we are faced with it. Her music is a testament to that experience, and how transformative it can be.

I’ve had a lot of situations recently where I could have laid down and given up, so many more times where I honestly wish I had. Yet there was always the smallest heartbeat of hope that stopped me from doing so, from ever crossing that line.

I can’t explain it. Maybe it was an angel watching over me, perhaps my own stubbornness that refuses to let me waste my life, my story. Maybe it was knowing that there are people out there who are genuinely rooting for me and want to see me succeed. People who love me more than I hate myself. Hell, maybe even some of it was out of pure spite; I would never want my enemies to have a reason to celebrate.

When I imagine the kind of person I want to be in the face of adversity, stress, or challenge, I think of many strong people in my life, but today I think of my grandfather.

In my youth, and I imagine my parents’ youth, he was a hard ass. He took no shit and made sure we knew right from wrong and acted in a way that upheld respect for ourselves and for others. I wouldn’t bring a skirt an inch too short within a 20-foot radius of him. He examined my report cards more closely than my parents did. At the same time, my childhood with him in my life was full of laughter, of naps in the sun, of long car rides, of Friday lunches and the (frequent) indulgence of ice cream on a school night.

In his later years, where he was just a silly, fun grandfather, or when he was slowly fading away from his illness, I saw how gentle and kind he was through it all.

His life was not one of ease, but he was given so many blessings because of other’s failings, and he always saw it that way. He was infinitely strong, even in the moments where it would have been more than acceptable for him to crumble.

In every way I admire him, and I miss him more than I can express.

In the months after his rare diagnosis, where we knew there was nothing we could do for him besides make him comfortable and enjoy whatever time we had with him, he was still gentle and understanding and never once (to my knowledge) took that pain out on anyone. He let me sing to him and cut his hair. He smiled at every nurse that came to help until he couldn’t anymore, and even then his blue eyes would sparkle just enough for you to know he was still there and appreciated what you were doing for him.

His frustration, his pain, his anger, was not what he wanted to be remembered for. The way he held himself and treated others made sure that was the case. The way that he saw his life, full of blessing and hope, was exactly how he lived. It is how we remember him.

Something about RAYE’s recent album reminded me of him and brought me to write this today. Where in a life where so much can go wrong, but also so much can go right because of it.

So much of what I write about here is circumstantial to my life, practices that are usually easier said than done, but I hope that you all take away from every chapter the fact that it will be so much harder if it isn’t done. Something even I remind myself of often.

I want you to listen to every single song on that album in order, twice, maybe three times, and hear every single word. The messages are SO important.

There are days where you will hate your body, where you wish you could step out of your own skin just for a break, but we move our bodies anyways because it makes us stronger.

There are days where love feels impossible and entirely out of reach. That true connection is going extinct; but we let our heart break and try again because living without love would drain the world of its color.

There will be days that you have no idea who is on your side, that you are misunderstood or even abandoned, but we trust in ourselves to carry on.

There are days where we hate our jobs or aren’t doing what we really want to be doing, but we go to work anyways, we work towards that next goal, because if we didn’t, it would never happen anyways.

The point is, we can never cross that line. The line where we become cold, unfeeling, untrusting, unbelieving. Even if it is easier to fall into that way of living.

It is hard to stay gentle and hopeful through pain, but it will always be worse if we don’t.

To try again is to live in hope. To want again is to attract more. To take one step forward is to overcome.

Zooming Out is and always will be a constant reminder to reframe your thinking. Every chapter is a reminder to me to do the same, and to inspire you to try again.

I think that is the beauty in sharing your experience, much like RAYE or any artist does with their art. It is the purest form of human expression, and we constantly gravitate towards those mediums because we will always be in search of that understanding and connection.

We want to know that we aren’t alone, that we aren’t crazy, that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

If that is what you need to hear in this moment, I will say it for you.

You are not alone.

There is light after the darkness.

The storm will always pass.

Your life is important, your art is important.

Please, do not give up. Do not give up your dreams and your hope.

Give your love freely and often.

Every time you feel afraid I hope that you know just a step beyond that fear is freedom.

Do not let your life be defined by the wrong decisions, the heartbreak, the challenges.

You are so much stronger than even you believe you are.

And know that in every chapter in life, there contains hope.