A few months ago my life changed in a surprising way.
The news travelled through the air, into my ear canal and down my spine with a chill that left me breathless.
The axis of my world cracked and broke. In that moment, everything changed.
Change isn’t always this encompassing, but sometimes it is.
Whether or not change rocks your world or just jiggles it a little, what matters most is how you deal with it.
My first response was two minutes of pure fear accompanied with a jacked up heart rate and tense muscles preparing me to run or fight.
Next, came three minutes of sit-in-a-corner-and-hyperventilate-panic-attack.
Then, came settling into what I hold to be true – we can find purpose in pain and we can do hard things.
For a few achingly long minutes, struggling against reality felt like the right response. But, I’ve been through enough personal pain, and supported my clients through their own pain, to know that struggling only makes things worse.
If you bump up against a reality that hurts and you want to fight, resist, close, run, cling, deny, repress or numb I want to offer up a few alternatives.
It’s likely none of these will feel easy; they might even feel crazy, annoying, or unreasonable given the circumstances. They will probably be hard, but hey, you can do hard things.
Stay
Don’t let the fear and uncertainty cause you to abandon yourself. There are at least thousand and three ways we can abandon ourselves. Learn your default and don’t do it. Hold on. Heal.
Flow
Don’t let the pain of what was settle into your soul. Where is the current of your life directing you to go? Trust yourself and surrender to it.
Open
When you’re hurt your mind closes, your heart constricts, and your vision narrows. It’s a natural and, typically, unhelpful response. Keep your heart, mind, and vision open. Look for as many possibilities and perspectives as you can. You’re not trapped – you can do more than just run, fight, or freeze.
Lean
Lean in to the people who love you, to the divine, to the trees, to afternoon naps, to the tub, to a professional, to a new dream, to a playlist. Let yourself be held in the ways that nourish you.
Space
Take the space you need to heal, to go slow, to begin again, to ignore advice, to wait, to rest, to discover who you are on the other side of the hurt.
Accept
Live with the truth of what is. Sometimes losing or failing or ending is the way. Commit to do what needs to be done. Move forward.
Story
We are constantly in a state of reprogramming. The narrative you choose to tell about what happened can be what holds you back or helps you heal. Reject the lines that deepen the trauma, the lines of blame or shame or criticism or judgement. Release the lines of not good enough, it will never work out, I never should have tried or trusted, I’m unlovable or unworthy, the future is terrible, I’m hopeless or helpless. Look at the story of your life and decide whether it’s one you want to read or whether you want to write a new one.
…
It took every one of these to help me get the other side.
For a month, I didn’t know where I was going, all I knew was my Sun was waking me with the words of Thirst and, in that moment, all was well.
I had books and baths to help me stay, coffee and fountain pens to help me story, sunsets and the splashing ocean to help me flow.
I stopped posting on social media to take space, to settle into the new tempo of my life.
Each and every morning I opened again and again to the truth …
These lives we love are mosaic of the most broken and most beautiful moments we experience.