We grow up thinking that we are the only ones with real struggle, except for the other people who have it worse than us and then we discount how hard our life is.
I suppose it must come from the egocentrism of our youth and believing the world is only exactly how we are experiencing it.
It wasn’t until I admitted that life is hard that I began to see it was hard for everyone.
Elizabeth Gilbert posted this quote on Facebook over 2-1/2 years ago and it really solidified for me what I was just starting to figure out at the time.
“There is a time in our lives, usually in mid-life, when a woman has to make a decision – possibly the most important psychic decision of her future life – and that is, whether to be bitter or not. Women often come to this in their late thirties or early forties. They are at the point where they are full up to their ears with everything and they’ve “had it” and “the last straw has broken the camel’s back” and they’re “pissed off and pooped out.” Their dreams of their twenties may be lying in a crumple. There may be broken hearts, broken marriages, broken promises.” ― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
Then she wrote a short but soul stirring piece on “refusing to become bitter, no matter the hell WHAT” to go with it (you can, and should go read it here … it’s so good).
Since then I’ve noticed that we all get our asses kicked in the very place we are the most vulnerable. The place we relied heavily on as “always going to be there”, the place we are using as our foundation.
I don’t know if the lesson is to teach us that the only secure foundation is one built on courage and faith, or if it’s to humble us so greatly that we learn that we aren’t immune to any of life’s challenges, or if it is to just bust our hearts so wide open that we can have way better conversation and connection to our humanity.
The hardest, but also the most worthwhile choices I made through the super storms in my life so far, have always been to find whatever felt like the opposite of bitterness.
Sometimes it was bewilderment.
Sometimes it was humour.
Sometimes it was forgiveness (it surprised me when I had to find forgiveness for people I didn’t even know).
Sometimes it was understanding.
Sometimes it was acceptance.
No matter what I found it was always rooted in love and usually took a long time to get to.
I had just decided that I wasn’t going to accept bitterness as a final destination and I was not going to spend my life looking for revenge.
I searched for anything that would lend to having a pure heart that might be a little less contaminated than before.
Somehow knowing that struggle is part of the human experience, and that we all face it in our own way helped me to understand that what I was going through wasn’t the worst thing ever, but a normal part of life.
Whatever you’re facing is hard… but we can all do hard things.
But I urge you to remain in the light, reach for peace, and look for the love.
Love never goes away, it just starts to look different.