When It Rains It Pours: How to Manage the Eye of the Storm

Saturday morning I woke up to…a lot of rain, as I did more days than not in the last week.

If you live in the Nashville area, chances are you’re a little water-logged too.  

I’m all for a couple of cozy, rainy days.  In fact, those melancholic, if not romantic, parts of me love a good excuse to hole up, drink loads of coffee, and read and write to my heart's content.  

Aaaand after a non-stop week of it, I’m officially done.  No mas.  Vitamin D por favor.

My house has tons of big windows.  This past Saturday morning, I got lost just staring out at bucket after bucket of rain, dumping against a foggy, silver day.  It reminded me of the big 2010 flood.  

I remember so clearly how helpless I felt during that flood.  People were losing everything: their houses, cars, and sentimental belongings, while I just sat hearing about it all on the news.  

Do you ever feel so helpless amidst the flood of your own emotions?  Do the water levels of your own powerlessness feel so high, you just want to hide behind the covers and completely opt out?

I have felt this way more times than I can count.  The waves of depression and anxiety were so crushing, every exit door to safety I knew of in my head seemed entirely too far away.  My ability to cope was non-existent and I clung to the few safe people around me because I knew I didn’t have the where-with-all to weather the storm alone.  

Let’s face it; there are those times in life that the pain of circumstance is more than we can bear.  We can’t self-help or positive-self talk our way out of it.  The gravitational pull of that pain is the only thing that seems true.  

In light of this, I want to share with you three pillars of truth that have kept me afloat.  

1) Reach out

This may seem ridiculously simple, yet I’m convinced most of us don’t do simple very well.  We love to over-complicate things.  My tendency in the eye of an emotional storm is to isolate.  I don’t want anyone seeing me weak, ugly crying, or God forbid, without a plan.  So, I retreat.  

What I’ve wised up to throughout the years is that any act of courage REQUIRES vulnerability and this vulnerability takes bags of strength.  What used to seem weak about this now seems powerful and expansive.  To reach out when you’re all out of answers and the inner critic rages inside is one hell of an act of courage.  

Who are your people?  Have two or three people you trust and start this buoyant conversation with them now or when you’re not in crisis.  Let them know that you consider them as safe and want to be able to reach out when you’re in need and vice-versa.  Pre-empting this brand of connection and conversation is everything.  

2) Life’s work

Reb, a brilliant therapist friend of mine, likes to say, “Don’t feel ashamed if you keep stumbling over the same problems.  Consider yourself lucky!  You’ve found your life’s work.  Many people spend their life wandering around never quite sure what it is they should be doing.” 

What is the emotion that tends to feel the most overwhelming?  What is the lie that feels so heavy and relentless, you can’t seem to catch a break?  

Is it depression? Anxiety or worry?  Insecurity and self-doubt?  Good news, this is the life’s work you must show up to do on a daily basis.  What is it trying to tell you?  My depression would always say, “You simply don’t have what it takes.  You’ll never get there.”  

Now I like to say back, “Where? I’m right where I need to be.”  It’s taken me quite some time to build these muscles, and they still get sore from time to time, but I know this is part of my life’s work and the emotional fitness I must pursue.  

Listen to voices amidst the unruly storms.  They will be the roadmap for the internal healing journey that needs to take place. 

3) This too

Finally, know this: no emotion is final.  Just as storm clouds pass and the sun eventually makes her long-anticipated appearance, those feelings of hopelessness and powerless will too.  

When words aren’t enough, and it seems absolutely nothing brings relief, take heart.  It will inevitably pass.  Sometimes the only thing we can do is watch the storm unfold, observe its strength, and touch its darkness.  Don’t make up stories, or fake news about your emotions.  Tip your hat and let them pass.  I promise, they will.  

You’ve been brought too far to simply be left here.  Love is far too clever for that, my Dear… 

Love & Gratitude,
Katie
xoxo

Magic in the Meltdown

If today’s title caught your eye, you are in the right place—Welcome.

When was the last time you had a meltdown?  You know, the powerless, ugly-cry, shut the world out because no one seems to understand how hard it is variety?  

It felt as though your body was boiling over with frustration so much so that it had to find a release so naturally, the eager emotional wheelhouse got a proverbial hall pass and skipped town on someone else’s dime.  It was a bender of a meltdown, remember?

In those moments, all I want to do is fix it, run, or somehow numb it in order to escape the tight and uncomfortable tension I’m feeling.  It’s simply too much.  

Days later and with time’s firm and steady grip around my limp hand, I realize something magical: there was and always is a clear way out.  However, against my resistant heart’s desire, that magic occurs as we willingly walk through the pain, not around it.  

I feel this sometimes when I can’t sleep.  I’ve been known to struggle with insomnia. Sometimes there’s a reason for it, and sometimes my stubborn body simply won’t shut off.

You know what the most frustrating bit of this dilemma is? It’s not the actual inability to sleep; it’s the belief that I “should” be able to sleep; that I am somehow guaranteed this right without question.  The entitlement trap is what gets me every time, leaving me resentful on top of delirious.  

What I realize after those seasons of scant shut-eye pass is something pretty basic, yet poignant: 

It didn’t kill me.  

In fact, it gave me something to learn from, write about, and understand better in order to amp up my arsenal of sleep tools.  (PSA: If you have trouble sleeping, let’s totally talk.)

Last week, I shared a very special interview with Miles Adcox, Owner and CEO of Onsite Workshops, a regular guest expert on the Dr. Phil Show, new Dad, among many other cool things.  If you missed the episode, definitely go back and check it out, he delivers some brilliant insight in there for us.

I ask every guest the same question: If you could give your 25-year-old self a piece of advice, what would it be?  (For you millennials out there, let’s say 15.)   

What he said was stunningly simple and so applicable to you and me: “It’s okay to not be okay.”

Wait. What?  

You mean, when I’m mid-meltdown of the century and nothing, I mean, NOTHING, looks as it should, it’s….OKAY?

Yes.

I’ve sat with those words a lot lately, and they bring me continual peace.  In my experience, like with the sleep situation, often it’s not the actual pain of the problem that is most piercing.  Instead, it’s the belief that whatever is happening shouldn’t be.  That, I believe, is the difference between pain and suffering.  

Pain inevitably ebbs and flows throughout this life if we are walking around with anything vaguely resembling a heartbeat.  However, suffering is the delicately crafted narrative we create about our pain.  “I shouldn’t be feeling this way” or “my past was too much to bear.”

Curiously, life is made up of a 50/50 split of positive and negative feeling emotions.  

Lately, I’ve been a student of this highly valuable process called unlearning: unlearning the entitlement stories, the fixing agents, the escape routes, and the harsh judgements that accompany my pain.  

We spend so much of our lives trying to fix the flaws we think hold us back in life, and little do we know that the unlearning of these remedies will be the savior who picks us off that fast and broken road.  

We must be the un-teacher of these numbing agents as we lean into the discomfort and tension of the moment.  

After all, it very likely won’t kill us.

You don’t need fixing; you need to be understood.  If we are constantly trying to escape ourselves and our pain, we will never get close enough to understand the root of it and answer its cry.  We must gently, and with loads of self-compassion, listen and embrace the voice of our dilemma, whatever it speaks.  This is the magical crossroads of our painful experience and total acceptance.  Not only that but ironically, this is the surest route to our deepest joy.

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

xoxo