Susan Cain is a bestselling author and co-founder of Quiet Revolution. I mentioned her before on the blog as a person who is making introversion ‘normal’. In one of her recent posts she shared Jack Gilbert’s poem below ‘for those of you who have loved and lost: your love was still magnificent’.

The poem is not just beautiful but also perspective shifting. That break up, unrequited love or lost friendship that you are reminiscing about – stop beating yourself up. You loved. You did the best you could, you ripped your heart out and you showed your vulnerable, naked self to the world. It does not matter what happened next – ‘anything worth doing is worth doing badly’. Let’s keep repeating this mantra until our memories are reframed from pain, loss and darkness to love, light and achievement.