Discovering Ourselves at Rock Bottom

Shamans know Rock Bottom is a deeply transformative place.

As we go through life, occasionally we find ourselves laid out on the floor of Rock Bottom; this is a natural part of living, growing and evolving. Rock Bottom happens eventually or suddenly, quietly or loudly, it affects all of us without bias, and can happen when we lose a job, or partner, or something else we considered ‘stable’ or ‘long lasting.’ We find ourselves here due to emotional upheaval and chaos, mental stress, health issues, spiritual confusion, a loss of a loved one, and many other reasons. Rock Bottom happens, shit happens but most importantly, Shift Happens.

I’ve learned to appreciate Rock Bottom because of the deeply transformative healing that can occur here. Rock bottom is a sacred initiation that cracks us open and allows us to shed old identities to reveal the light of our true selves.

Think about it for a second.

When you are falling you feel like you are failing and therefore you are flailing. There is nothing to hold on to, no one to grasp, there is no life line to hold. You can’t learn anything while you fall - except for how to fall. Sometimes all you can do is exist moment to moment. You are alone, no one can save you, survival is your only focus, your breath is your only friend. Things are breaking around and inside of you - your heart, your illusions, your patterns, your stories, your deeply engrained belief systems, and perhaps your sense of self and who you thought you were.

Perhaps around this time, we reach for a familiar coping skill and find ourselves confused because for some reason it (alcohol, drugs food, etc) doesn’t feel cozy or ‘good’ anymore… this is because as we fall we begin to learn, and a truth a lot of us discover here is that our old coping skill (that used to keep us safe and ‘protected’) is now the one thing responsible for us being kept us separate from the whole. Coping skills are things we learned to help us survive, but as we evolve we end up out-growing coping skills. It can be so scary when the things we used to reach for comfort are no longer comfortable. We are breaking the shell of our illusion.

We are rapidly unlearning the patterns and beliefs that were illusions of safety. Perhaps we begin to see through the illusions of the people around us; are your friends really your friends? A lot of us notice that as we get healthier and set boundaries we lose people around us that benefited from us having no boundaries. Perhaps we begin to see through the lies we told ourselves. Grasping for perfection or self righteousness in ourselves or others are destroyed when those hopes and expectations turn to ash and we realize that just like others, we are flawed. (The good news is that this is okay! More on that later…)

Even though Rock Bottom sucks, it might feel somewhat familiar - we’ve been here before. It’s a scary place because things feel so broken, but in the brokenness there is a deep vulnerability and therefore, the best medicine for us: healing potential.

Maybe we went through something again that we already experienced and we are so frustrated with ourselves, beating ourselves up for making the same mistake again - but maybe we didn’t learn the lesson well enough the first time, so the universe gave us another chance. Or maybe we did learn the lesson, but got too comfortable and forgot, and the universe challenged us with the same problem to see if our self awareness shifted. We can make the same choice with more awareness and more experience. Or maybe the universe is challenging us to be brave and choose something harder this time: perhaps choosing ourselves over another and risking loss and the unknown rather than staying in the familiar.

Here, the only thing we can do is allow ourselves to fall, and break, and be sad, and feel all the emotions that we are feeling. We writhe in uncomfortability, and yell, and curse the universe, How dare you! Why is this happening? What did I do to deserve this? All I want is to be happy! Fuck! Here we find a pregnant place of potential where we face the pain head on: we emote, we express, we cry, we journal, we write, we sit with the hurt, betrayal, and confusion. We sit with the pain and the different versions of ourselves (inner child etc) and we learn a valuable lesson: the way not around the pain, it is through.

It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value.

―Alain de Botton

Once we find ourselves here at Rock Bottom, once we have sat with our pain, accepted it and therefore accepted ourselves completely, faults and all, we begin to flow with it and through it, and eventually we begin to dance with it.

Here, true healing can begin because there is such weighted stillness, there is deafening silence, there is alone-ness, and there is spaciousness to heal, because there is such emptiness. This is bittersweet and it is hopeful: when something is empty is has the capacity to be filled.

For the first time, we take a big deep breath and face the things that we’ve been avoiding, and we face them alone. No friend, lover, parent or peer can help you here. We are here alone with all our patterns, all our wounds and insecurities. Here is the magical space we can begin to fill up our emptiness with whatever we want. Here we can start to rebuild ourselves, with a solid foundation that we can only get from being at Rock Bottom. Also, if you have noticed my use of the word ‘we’ rather than ‘you,’ it is very purposeful. Even though we are alone in this process, we all go through this at different times, phases and stages of our lives, and therefore, we are united in this void, and I think there is something gorgeous about this grief.

At Rock Bottom, the only one who can pick you up is yourself. You can call on the wisdom of your Older Self, or your trust in the universe (which is also you.) And so we begin again, a fresh start, a leg to stand on, we begin again. We start listening to podcasts, reading books, writing, journaling, creating, seeing joy in the little things - flowers in the cracks of sidewalks, the way the moon looks, the rays of the sun through the clouds, the laughter of a friend. We start to heal in the tiny moments that sew our heart back together. We start to heal by connecting to the innate wisdom that is us, that is our breath, that is our inner knowing that our current situation is not our final destination. We begin to realize that there is a silver cord throughout our life connecting us to synchronicity; and this perhaps this chaotic upheaval that we suffered through was (maybe, violently) redirecting us to a different path. We look back on all our prior Rock Bottoms and see how they guided us to be different, to be better, to be stronger, more resilient, more kind, more loving, more understanding, and most importantly more compassionate toward ourselves and others.

When we are in pain we are more vulnerable, open, and connected to everyone else. When we are in pain we can sit with other’s pain wholly, with empathy, and a deep understanding. We realize that we heal, not to handle the trauma, but to be able to hold the future joy; the joy that is imminent and just around the corner. We only have to allow ourselves to break, and fall, and dissolve; and gently, with patience and tenderness, pick ourselves up and eventually reach back out and engage in life: to chose to begin again, no matter how much it hurts.

I realized a long time ago that every time my heart breaks, it breaks open to hold more love, to hold more vulnerability, more compassion, and therefore to be able to hold more of me.

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.”

~ Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

In the past, I’ve held on to things for a while, and to quote someone from TikTok, those things that I held onto have claw marks on them from how much I loved them; but I, as we all do, inevitably learn to let go. Life isn’t about avoiding pain, it’s about jumping in and joining the dance. It’s about saying yes to the things that feel good regardless of the possible outcome. It’s about living fully with no regrets.

Lately, when I have suffered through breakups I truly feel into that loss, wholly and sacredly. I sit with myself at Rock Bottom and feel everything and when I feel ready, I begin again. As I get older I’ve come to realize that in relationships, I give my all, and I’m proud of myself for that. No matter the outcome, I’m able to walk away knowing that I gave such big love, and they most likely needed that.

When death finds you, may it find you alive.

~ African Proverb

So be patient with yourself as you win and as you fail. Be compassionate to yourself, your emotions, your mind, and your body. Forgive yourself for not understanding and forgive others for not understanding. Take care of your body, hydrate and don’t underestimate the power of a salt bath or a really good cry. Don’t forget to pause, take a moment to yourself, and connect with your breath. Most of all be gentle with yourself, you are learning, and you are only getting better, flaws and all.

Xoxo

Jess

Note:

This blog is brought to you by the year 2024, it was not my favorite.

I lost several friends, most notably one of my best friends, Tiffany Barsotti. I also left a relationship, sadly but intentionally, with someone who I thought was my forever.