Rock Bottom Reveals Your Foundation

If you’re reading this you probably feel pretty low. And low doesn’t really begin to describe it, because you’ve been here so long this feels like home.

You know the feeling all too well: When you get so comfortable in the dark that you just don’t seem to feel the full spectrum of your emotions anymore. Happiness and sadness are a thing of the past, your mind has gone into survival mode and put you in autopilot. Autopilot seems to provide the necessary numbness required to keep you from insanity in times like these.

But still, you miss how it feels to experience an all-consuming laughter.

You know the laughter: It’s the kind where you’re laughing so hard, no noise comes out, you just shake until happy tears burst from your eyes and your stomach hurts.

You’ve put your head down and started doing the work necessary to crawl out of this seemingly six-foot deep hole you’re in.

You’re close, so close…and then something happens again to push you right back into that hole.

As you can see by now, I am you. And I am by no means the eternal optimist. But, we are is the eternal survivalists and I’ll take survival over a false sense of optimism every day of the week.

People who aren’t going through your struggle will say things like, “it’ll work out! It always does!”

My friend, do not be lulled into a false sense of security by the comforting words of others. The only way out is up and only you have control of which direction you go.

I am confident, in the words of the late great Maya Angelou, that, still, we will rise.

You see, only a select few have the strength required to reinvent themselves. The slash and burn will create a new you. Albeit, a harder version of you, but nonetheless, the you that emerges will be a phoenix.

Find your outlet, for it will heal you. If you’re lucky, it may have the power to heal others just like you.

Life isn’t about happiness and rainbows. It’s about bearing the heaviest burden you can, with grace and unwavering resiliency.

Rock bottom is a gift only a select few of us can come out from under.

But, there’s a beauty in being shown your foundation. This is the primal stuff you’re made of, down here in the dark. Live in this moment, and appreciate it. This is building you into the version of yourself you will be proud of.

-By Michelle