So you’re in it: that dark, muddy place and time when life feels like it’s falling apart. Perhaps you’ve experienced a single, defining, life-changing event that’s catapulted you into change. Perhaps it’s been a slow slide downwards to the point where you can’t see a way back.
Whatever’s happening, I know life hasn’t always felt it’s falling apart, but I trust there are good reasons it does right now.
The thing we tend to forget—that I forget and I wonder if you’ve forgotten right now too—is that we’ve been here before. Maybe not in quite the same way, but we’ve been at our “bottom.” We’ve hit those times when it didn’t feel like things could get any worse.
And yet we have this amazing track record behind us.
When life feels like it’s falling apart, remember this: you’ve made it through, 100% of the time.
When life feels like it’s falling apart, it’s easy to focus on all the things that are wrong, bad, lacking, destroyed, gone, lost, betrayed, and forsaken.
But among all those things are the many things that are not.
The things that remain. The breeze on your skin. That song you love to listen to. All the kind words and meaningful moments we’ve collected over the years. You are still here and you’re still moving forward.
And there are those days you’ve made it through, even if they feel like a distant memory right now. So far, you have an impeccable track record, a 100% success rate, of making it through those days. Congratulations. I don’t know about you but I look at some of my dark pits from the past and I think “Yes, that’s an achievement.”
And, when I look back at the cycles of my life, I realise everything ebbs and flows. Just like winter, spring, summer and autumn march onward, cycling forward. So do we, and this too shall pass. Even if this feels like the worst thing, unlike anything you’ve ever faced before, think back to the last time you felt this way: you made it through. You’ll make it through again, and you’ll raise that bar of resilience and self-trust for the future.
Wherever you are right now, it might not be pleasant, it might not be fun, you might not see a way out (yet), but here’s what you’ve proven countless times before:
You’ve got this.
Take a deep breath, and ride the wave.
Image: Andy Wang
