A g u I d e d j o u r n a L b y b r I a n n a w I e s t

—Joyce Carol Oates

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I A M T H E H E R O O F M Y O W N L I F E 1 1 1
“One day, after all, you will be dead. Then 
you will be in the ground. You will buy no 
more flowers or pretty dresses, you will take 
no more vacations, or spend money on any-
thing else. So if there is something that will 
brighten your day, do it now. Defy death. 
Revel in this brief moment, here, in this 
world full of intermittent beauty.”
—Jennifer Wright

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1 1 2 B R I A N N A W I E S T
L I S T
This is what I believe is worth suffering for:

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I A M T H E H E R O O F M Y O W N L I F E 1 1 3

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1 1 4 B R I A N N A W I E S T
L I S T
This is the advice that once helped me 
through a really tough time:

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I A M T H E H E R O O F M Y O W N L I F E 1 1 5

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1 1 6 B R I A N N A W I E S T
L I S T
This is what I will spend my days thinking about
when I am fully healed and happy:
This is what I will spend my days doing 
when I am fully healed and happy:

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I A M T H E H E R O O F M Y O W N L I F E 1 1 7
This is how I will think about the things that challenge 
me when I am fully healed and happy:

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1 1 8 B R I A N N A W I E S T
Everything you dream you will do, could do, might do 
when you are better…everything you hope that will tran-
spire into your being by the virtue of your outside world 
changing…those things are not your rewards, they are your 
tools. Do them now. Think them now. Be them now. Life 
unfolds from the inside out. 

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I A M T H E H E R O O F M Y O W N L I F E 1 1 9
“Everybody has a little bit of the sun and moon in them. 
Everybody has a little bit of man, woman, and animal in 
them. Darks and lights in them. Everyone is part of a con-
nected cosmic system. Part earth and sea, wind and fire, 
with some salt and dust swimming in them. We have a 
universe within ourselves that mimics the universe out-
side. None of us are just black or white, or never wrong 
and always right. No one. No one exists without polarities. 
Everybody has good and bad forces working with them, 
against them, and within them.”
—Suzy Kassem

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1 2 0 B R I A N N A W I E S T
L I S T
This is a thank you letter to someone 
who has loved me unconditionally in my life:

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I A M T H E H E R O O F M Y O W N L I F E 1 2 1

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1 2 2 B R I A N N A W I E S T
L I S T
This is a thank you letter to my younger self 
for getting me to where I am now:

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I A M T H E H E R O O F M Y O W N L I F E 1 2 3

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1 2 4 B R I A N N A W I E S T
L I S T
This is an apology letter to my younger self 
for all of the times I was so mean to myself:

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I A M T H E H E R O O F M Y O W N L I F E 1 2 5

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1 2 6 B R I A N N A W I E S T
L I S T
This is where I hope to be in five years:

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I A M T H E H E R O O F M Y O W N L I F E 1 2 7

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1 2 8 B R I A N N A W I E S T
L I S T
These are the 10 things I do 
most frequently on any typical day:
1
2
3
4
5

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I A M T H E H E R O O F M Y O W N L I F E 1 2 9
6
7
8
9
10

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1 3 0 B R I A N N A W I E S T
L I S T
This is where I will actually be in five years 
if my daily habits stay the same:

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I A M T H E H E R O O F M Y O W N L I F E 1 3 1

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I A M T H E H E R O O F M Y O W N L I F E 1 3 3
It is not whether you take time to go out-
side, but whether you can sit outside and 
do nothing else but breathe in life and just 
enjoy it. That is the mark of having made it 
somewhere worth going.

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1 3 4 B R I A N N A W I E S T
L I S T
These are the things I most commonly crave:

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I A M T H E H E R O O F M Y O W N L I F E 1 3 5

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1 3 6 B R I A N N A W I E S T
L I S T
This is what those cravings are 
emotional representations of:

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I A M T H E H E R O O F M Y O W N L I F E 1 3 7

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1 3 8 B R I A N N A W I E S T

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I A M T H E H E R O O F M Y O W N L I F E 1 3 9
1. You paid the bills this month and maybe even had extra to spend 
on non-necessities. It doesn’t matter how much you belabored the 
checks as they went out; the point is that they did, and you figured 
it out regardless.
2. You question yourself. You doubt your life. You feel miserable 
some days. This means you’re still open to growth. This means you 
can be objective and self-aware. The best people go home at the end 
of the day and think: “or…maybe there’s another way.”
3. You have a job. For however many hours, at whatever rate, you 
are earning money that helps you eat something, sleep on some-
thing, wear something every day. It’s not failure if it doesn’t look the 
way you thought it would—you’re valuing your independence and 
taking responsibility for yourself.
4. You have time to do something you enjoy, even if “what you enjoy” 
is sitting on the couch and ordering dinner and watching Netflix.
5. You are not worried about where your next meal is coming from. 
There’s food in the fridge or pantry, and you have enough to actually 
pick and choose what you want to eat. 
6. You can eat because you enjoy it. It’s not a matter of sheer survival.
7. You have one or two truly close friends. People worry about the 
quantity but eventually tend to realize the number of people you can 
claim to be in your tribe has no bearing on how much you feel intimacy, 
acceptance, community, or joy. At the end of the day, all we really want 
are a few close people who know us (and love us) no matter what.

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1 4 0 B R I A N N A W I E S T
8. You could afford a subway ride, cup of coffee, or the gas in your 
car this morning. The smallest conveniences (and oftentimes, ne-
cessities) are not variables for you.
You’re not the same person you were a year ago. You’re learning, and 
evolving, and can identify the ways in which you’ve changed for 
better and worse.
9. You have the time and means to do things beyond the bare mini-
mum. You’ve maybe been to a concert in the last few years, you buy 
books for yourself, you could take a day trip to a neighboring city if 
you wanted—you don’t have to work all hours of the day to survive.
10. You have a selection of clothing at your disposal. You aren’t 
worried about having a hat or gloves in a blizzard; you have cool 
clothes for the summer and something to wear to a wedding. 
11. You not only can shield and decorate your body but can do so 
appropriately for a variety of circumstances.
12. You can sense what isn’t right in your life. The first and most 
crucial step is simply being aware. Being able to communicate to 
yourself: “Something is not right, even though I am not yet sure 
what would feel better.”
13. If you could talk to your younger self, you would be able to 
say: “We did it, we made it out, we survived that terrible thing.” So 
often people carry their past traumas into their present lives, and if 
you want any proof that we carry who we were in who we are, all 
you need to do is see how you respond to your inner child hearing 

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I A M T H E H E R O O F M Y O W N L I F E 1 4 1
“you’re going to be okay” from the person you became.
14. You have a space of your own. It doesn’t even have to be a home 
or apartment (but that’s great if it is). All you need is a room, a 
corner, a desk, where you can create or rest at your discretion; where 
you govern who gets to be part of your weird little world and to 
what capacity. It’s one of the few controls we can actually exert.
15. You’ve lost relationships. More important than the fact that 
you’ve simply had them in the first place is that you or your former