Rock bottom is unreliable... (Pt.1)

When I think of rock bottom, I always imagined falling like Alice in Wonderland and then SPLAT! Like a bug on a windshield. 

There have been times when I thought I "hit rock bottom" but I've learned that rock bottom is unstable, slippery, and has a basement. I've remembered times when I thought "It can’t get worst.." And then it does.

It gets much worst! The worst sadness in my life gets worst! My depression gets worst. My feelings of inadequacy, loneliness, failure, fears, insecurity have all gotten way worst than I thought was possible! Rock bottom is a mirage.

Rock bottom is also like treading water. It’s exhausting! It gets harder and harder to keep your head above water the longer you decide to keep doing it. That’s how I've felt for the last few months. I went MIA and that’s why. I was treading water in a pool disguised as rock bottom.

As you've read in past posts (here and here) I've seen some ugly moments. Getting divorced isn't exactly a walk in the park, but more like a shit lined dirt road. Here's what I've discovered….

I had to be the one to choose to leave rock bottom. No one could force me, or trick me into doing it. My motivation had to solely be for me. Previously when I chose to leave I had reasons for it like: to be in love. For (insert name here). Because that’s what god wanted me to do. Or my favorite, because that’s what I'm supposed to do.

It never stuck before. I would try and make changes and I would fail miserably. I would go back and forth over and over again with negative self-talk and self-deprecating humor. If you laugh about it, it’s not that bad. The anger would still bubble beneath the surface. The depression would rear its ugly head. Every fear, failure, and insecurity would come back with vengeance. I never understood why. I was doing the work, and I was passionate about it, and I thought I wanted the change. I did, but I wanted it for all the wrong reasons.

I had to completely change my way of thinking. I had to first decide why. Why was it so important to make changes in my life? Why did I need to understand those dark and unflattering parts of myself? The parts of me that I despise. The parts of me that I am way to embarrass to admit to ANYONE how I truly felt. I've had days, where I cant, get out of bed. I have felt days where I was so angry that anyone and everyone in my way was going to get their head ripped off. I have felt so afraid and defensive that I build a fortress around my entire life. Anyone too close would know it and I would push and push and push until I was alone in a dark fortress with no one but my pain to soothe me. 

That had to stop. I was sick of the constant loop that I was stuck in. I was sick of hurting those that I loved. I was sick of being angry and sad and hurt. So I chose me. I reached out to someone who loved me unconditionally and told them all about it. What I was feeling, and what it was doing to my life and those around me.

I was at a point where I couldn't do it myself. So they helped me every day. We talked on the phone every day and met once a week. Like an addiction sponsor. I had to check in all the time. And we started small. We started with the smallest, and what seemed like the dumbest things.

I started with a checklist of what needed to be done. I listed everything. I listed homework, housework, chores and everything that HAD to be done. I had to start prioritizing. Because on top of the feeling that my life was falling apart, I had homework. So I started with lightening my daily load. And that is all I focused on. What did I need to do? With this, I learned to focus. I still needed to eat, I still needed to feed the dog, and I still needed to do homework. Despite all of the millions of emotions and thoughts surging through my body I needed to stay focused on school and just surviving.

When I would check in with my "sponsor" she would ask what I did today. Plain and simple. Did I cross off the things on my list? If I did, great! If I didn't, why? What was the blockage? What stopped me from doing it. I was learning to stay on task. After 2 weeks or so, we started to shift to what I wanted to do.

What did I want/need and why? I started by isolating my feelings. What was I feeling? You have to name it to tame it. I read the book Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett. I learned to be an "emotional scientist", and name my emotions. This was a huge help. I learned to take a "meta moment" and breathe before reacting. I would highly recommend this book to everyone! It was amazing! If you want a taste of the book, Brene Brown interview, Marc, on her podcast and it is so good.

Speaking of Brene, I read two of her books Braving the Wilderness and Rising Strong. I learned a valuable lesson from both, 1 was the phrase "The story I'm telling myself is…" The story that I'm making up or telling myself about a situation that is so far from the truth. And 2 "You are in the arena…" I cannot achieve anything without showing up. And I have a superpower because I am in the arena. I am here fighting for my life. I am showing up! Despite being knocked down, beaten up because life is a bitch like that. You show up. You fight in the arena with everyone else who is in the arena fighting. To paraphrase what Brene said, when you are in the arena and you are knocked on your ass, bloody and mud kicked in your face you are going to be down there with everyone else in the exact same position. And those are the ones that are on your side. They are the ones that are fighting alongside you. Everyone is bloodied and covered in mud.

This taught me that my fight is worth it. Being in the arena and showing up is worth it! When I do the work, I have the right to say that I'm doing everything I can to be a better person. It’s ugly but I'm doing it. I'm doing it every single day. And it’s worth it. And those that are not in the arena, that are booing from the stands are irrelevant. Their opinions and their judgments are worthless because they're too afraid to get off their asses and fight. It helped me weed out who was in the arena and who was in the stands. I felt proud of myself for dusting myself off over and over again and fighting. Though at the time I felt beaten to a pulp and I got up anyway. I was strong and I did that.

Then I read a book called Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant. Sheryl talked about losing her husband unexpectedly, and she was now living in option b all the time. She had to learn to navigate this new normal all while raising children. This book was enlightening to learn to give me grace and to be open to new options. I was stuck in forcing myself and others to fit my own reality because I was so afraid of losing them. In my mind there was only option A. Option B wasn't even… an option. I learned to think differently. Option A is…. But if that doesn’t work out we have options B, C, D…. elemenoP. It’s going to be ok. It does not need to be perfect, and my own idea of perfection can only be seen by me. No one else has any idea what I think it "should or shouldn't be". I can't project those ideas out. Those are only in me. And forcing others to fit that is not only wrong but sick.

I read a few marriage books, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail and How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It. These were very helpful in my relationship with my husband, and part of my journey but marriages will never work if you don't have your shit together so I had to get my shit together first.

I read Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Untamed and The Untethered Soul. Each of these taught something new like trusting my intuition, and my authentic self is the only version I need to be. And the beginning of my spiritual journey. Each of these is hard to explain in one paragraph but I would highly recommend reading them. I have started to develop habits that keep me grounded. One that has become very important to me is meditation. A future post will talk more about how I developed this.

Each of these was not pivotal in my change but they started to chink the armor. Again, I needed to make all of these changes for me. Everything that I was learning in these books was helpful but I still needed to remember why. I would replay ugly scenarios, and evaluate my role. What did I say? What did I do? What did my tone of voice sound like? What was I thinking in that moment or moments leading up to it? What was the story I was telling myself? I made amends to those that I hurt and had to take some deep dives to find out where that behavior came from. Let me tell you, it was ugly. I shed so many tears and had so many stomach aches. Apologizing for something that was YEARS ago is embarrassing, but it feels so good to let go. A valuable lesson that I learned was that an apology is not about receiving forgiveness from another person. I can't control that. But I can forgive myself for my behavior. Owning my behavior or thoughts and learning to forgive myself for them has been so hard. It's not over but a good chunk has been uncovered. I've reached out for restitution without the idea that things will go back to normal or that I will be forgiven. I've learned to accept the consequences of my actions.

(To be continued…)