I've had this post on my phone for months, and I before I knew I was going to launch AKB. Now I have a platform where I can upload all these posts and I'm going to use it.

I remember writing this right after I finished torturing myself thinking about the mistakes I made in the past.

Basketball players condition for months to prepare their bodies for an 82-game season and a chance to win a championship. They maintain a healthy diet, workout consistently, and some even engage in weird pre-game rituals. Yet, none of those activities stop accidents from happening because those players still get injured throughout the season.

I need you to think about yourself as a basketball player and your life as the 82-game season. You've just suffered a traumatic injury, which can be seen as the traumatic event that you are experiencing in your life right now. Your first impulse is to think, "How did I get here? What did I do wrong? How could I have stopped this from happening?" However, I need you to think, "How can I make progress from here? What can I do differently? How can I keep moving forward?" You need to understand that traumatic events happen and it's not about what you did in the past, it's about what you're willing to do in the present to move forward. You need to remember that it's a process.

Basketball players don't immediately start jumping after tearing an ACL, they go through months of rehabilitation. These players and the personnel around them understand that recovering from an injury is a delicate process that needs to be treated as such because if it's not they risk re-injuring themselves or making the injury worse. Oftentimes, we go through traumatic experiences and we try to go about our lives like everything is okay without taking the time to go through the process of getting better mentally and physically. We feel bad for feeling bad, but that's all part of the process. Don't try to rush feeling better, it'll happen as you continue to work on yourself.

You're human, you're allowed to grieve and you're allowed to feel bad. Take time to understand what happened and grow from it. I know that's easier said than done, but it's an essential part of the process. Take baby steps and never neglect the progress you make. If you're able to do something new and different today that you couldn't do yesterday it should be celebrated as an accomplishment. It doesn't matter if what you accomplished was something you could do easily before, all that matters is that you can do it now.

Don't let your traumatic event define you, you're more than what you've experienced. Keep your spirits up - you'll be running and jumping in no time.