Real Talk: Rock Bottom wasnt the hardest part

Rock bottom isn’t the worst of it. I think If Im really honest I actually liked it there for awhile. Remember Alice in Wonderland? She should never have looked down that damn rabbit hole. Had she just stayed put in the cozy comfort of the life she knew – she would never have had to endure the chaos and confusion of Wonderland.

But whats a girl to do? When every fibre of your being is telling you that there is more to life than what you are experiencing – you feel a constant pull. A tugging. A restlessness within you that wont let you feel present, grateful or content with the world around you.

If you dare to look down the rabbit hole – you need to know one thing. Once you realise there is a different way of living, of being, of experiencing the world..there is no turning back. You wont be able to walk away unchanged.

Some of us live the rest of our lives supressing that knowing. The awareness of more. We distract ourselves with the business of every day life, and materialism and live vicariously through strangers on reality tv.

But for some of us – we cant go on in denial. We cant help but to throw ourselves down that rabbit hole. We unburden ourselves from everything we know and we take a chance on a new perspective. From the outside it looks irresponsible and reckless. We abandon societal norms and turn our back on the notion of what we “should do”. We run and we dive down the rabbit hole, into the unknown – and its exciting and invigorating while we rush away from everything we know…but then we hit the bottom. Rock bottom.

We look around and the enormity of what we have done hits us. When you make a decision that changes the course of your life and the future you had always visualised is no longer a possibility – it takes your breath away. You stop breathing. You begin to panic. Where am I ? Who am I? What have I done? What do I do now?

Rock bottom.

If Im really honest – it’s a place I actually found the relief I was looking for. After more than a decade of relentlessly filling every moment of my day with productivity, I finally stopped. For so long I had believed that the harder I worked, the more I endured, the more I suffered – the more success I deserved. That’s what we are told right? Success comes at a price. Usually that price is our wellbeing. Arriving at rock bottom gave me permission to just stop spinning wheels and stay very still for awhile.

I wrapped myself up in excuses and got cozy at rock bottom. I was a 29 year old that was about to get divorced & lose the life I had known. Let the pity party begin. And what a party it was! A cocktail of binge eating, excessive exercise, prescription drugs (self prescribed of course- rock bottom meant I couldn’t be bothered seeking actual medical support) and a whole lot of isolation and introversion. I actually liked it. It got me off the hook from having to show up in the world. I wasn’t letting anyone down – I was at rock bottom, no one should expect anything from me, right? Give me a break – don’t you know what I am going through? I AM AT ROCK BOTTOM.

I wish I could say there was a moment when the clouds parted and the sunshine found me and I was inspired to rise up and begin living my life like it mattered again.

That didn’t happen.

I realised that because I was at rock bottom – the expectations that I had carried for so long had somehow disappeared. I was unburdened. I was free to rebuild myself from the ground up. I had lost everything – but it had given me the space to create anything I wanted.

And so I began.

I was determined to be an architect of change. I would consciously rebuild myself, my world and my life.

The power of choice was liberating. We always have a choice. Too often we forget that. At any given moment we have the choice to choose a different outcome and then get to work to make that happen.

Over the next few years I pulled myself out of rock bottom. It took every fibre of my being. But I was fiercely brave. Why? Well I had been to rock bottom. I had lived there. So I had nothing to fear. I could only rise. I told my best friend that I loved him. I invested in myself and opened the business I had been dreaming of for years. I bought a house, in my name, by myself. I made investments in businesses I believed in. I fell pregnant and birthed a beautiful baby boy. I travelled to beautiful places and ate delicious foods and lay in the sun and took time to just breathe.

Now – I have to continue to work on myself. To give to myself daily so that I am fulfilled, content and self aware. It is my responsibility to continue to live a life that satisfies me so that I am not drawn to rabbit holes. I cant imagine ever throwing myself down a rabbit hole again – but a decade ago I probably would have said the same thing.

Remaining present – that’s harder than rock bottom. We are in a world that pulls us in a million different directions at once. There is one choice I make daily – to pull myself up. To rise. To stay as far away from rock bottom as I can.

We always have a choice.

What are you choosing?

Every time I perform a pull up I am forced to reflect on the choices I make. My body has to be physically strong – this reflects the choices I make around exercise, sleep, nutrition, time management. My mind has to be strong – this reflects how aligned I am to my values & how consciously I am editing my thought patterns. When body and mind come together – my pull ups are easy. I rise. When I am unbalanced in anyway, I cant pull myself up. It reminds me that I need to sort myself out before I sink back towards rock bottom.

I choose to rise.

So the choices I make daily matter.

Our life is simply a reflection of the choices we make.

When we realise that – we can choose to start loving our own creation, and stop worrying about falling down rabbit holes.