The Journey To Rock Bottom

Rock bottom is that place we find ourselves where we feel we have lost control over the events that are shaping our lives. In this moment, we become powerless, we become the ultimate victim. Rock bottom is a place that no one wants to go to and we will avoid it at all costs. But, in all actuality, this is the place where truly profound changes take place. This is the point where we realize that we have nothing else to lose by trying a completely different approach to how we are living our lives. This is when we let go. This is when we surrender. This is when we accept going along for the ride for a while, or maybe for the duration. This is when we let go of the reins and just let life happen.

We can hit rock bottom in a multitude of ways. It can be forced upon us through some tragedy that on the surface appears to be completely random and through no fault of our own. But if we dig deep enough we will most likely uncover variables to this tragedy that were within our control and had we made different decisions at some point on the timeline we may have avoided said tragedy.

We can also hit rock bottom, or at least what feels like rock bottom, by digging deep into our past and uncovering some issues from our past that may have been so painful that our subconscious has it securely shoved to the bottom of the pile of our emotional baggage. But it is not secure, in fact it is constantly leaking like some uncapped oil well somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, bubbling away just enough to taint the water, but not enough to draw serious attention. Uncovering this crap can be extremely painful, but necessary because when it is done and we have recovered from the pain and paralysis it will bring on, we will become a better person for it. 

Once we exit rock bottom, we will realize that it wasn’t rock bottom that caused us so much anxiety, it was the journey we took to get there. It was our fear of the consequences of rock bottom that compelled us to take any and all measures possible to avoid it. By masking over the negative features of this journey, by ignoring all the red flags, by evading the uncomfortable conversations, by avoiding the pain and discomfort, we are just prolonging this journey. But we cannot avoid the fact that we will eventually get there, and once we get there and finally deal with what needed to be dealt with, we will realize that it was a place that we had to get to.

More importantly, once on the other side of rock bottom we may come to discover that it was not as bad as we expected. And in coming to this realization, we might get comfortable doing the uncomfortable things much earlier in the process, avoiding the journey to rock bottom altogether.

Conversely, many of us will fear rock bottom so much that we can not allow ourselves to get there. We will just suffer indefinitely, compounding the consequences of rock bottom, making it that much tougher to complete the journey there. Understanding that we cannot avoid rock bottom, but by realizing that the sooner we get there, and the shorter we make the journey, the less impact it will have on our lives, freeing us up to move forward.

Read more - Dealing With Rock Bottom (coming soon!)