‘I Don’t Fit in. They Don’t Really Want Me There. I Wonder Why I Wasn’t Invited. Circles Are Great if You’re on the Inside.’

If you’ve ever felt that excruciating feeling of walking into a new place, of being surrounded with new faces, of being left out of group texts, of being excluded, don’t let those experiences go to waste. Turn it around and use them for something good.

Use it to recognize the hurting among you. Use it to recognize the lonely. Use it to recognize the left out. And then use it to reach out an invite, or a hand, or some kind of nice gesture.

It’s not an easy thing to do — getting out of your comfort zone, getting over yourself enough to help someone else, getting out your saw and your hammer and your nails right there in the middle of a crowd to build a bigger table. It’s not easy. If it was easy, everyone would do it.

We’re all guilty. We’ve all done it at some point. We’ve all been unaware, so there is no purpose in being mad, or angry, and there definitely isn’t any purpose in using it as an excuse to call people names, or tear someone down. Chances are, nobody is being mean. Nobody is being intentional. Chances are, they simply aren’t thinking, and we’ve all been guilty of not thinking before. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay. That doesn’t mean we should keep our blinders on. That doesn’t mean we should continue constructing our closed-off circles.

Be the kind of woman you wish someone had been to you.

Make a U.

Circles were made to be broken, but U’s were made to include everyone, to keep growing bigger and better and stronger.

U’s were made for us all.”

**This story was written by Amy Weatherly. Follow Amy on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.