If you know that change needs to be made in your life, it is okay if you are far away from your goal or if you cannot yet conceive how you will arrive.
It is okay if you are starting at the beginning.
It is okay if you are at rock bottom and cannot yet see your way through.
It is okay if you are at the foot of your mountain and have failed every time you’ve tried to overcome it.
Rock bottom is very often where we begin on our healing journey. This is not because we suddenly see the light, not because our worst days are magically transmuted into some type of epiphany, and not because someone saves us from our own madness. Rock bottom becomes a turning point because it is only at that point that most people think: I never want to feel this way again.
That thought is not just an idea. It is a declaration and a resolution. It is one of the most life-changing things you can ever experience. It becomes the foundation upon which you build everything else.
When you decide you truly do not ever want to feel a certain way again, you set out on a journey of self-awareness, learning, and growth that has you radically reinvent who you are.
In that moment, fault becomes irrelevant. You’re no longer mulling over who did what or how you’ve been wronged. In that moment, only one thing guides you, and it is this: No matter what it takes, I will never accept my life getting to this point again.
Rock bottom isn’t a bad day. It doesn’t happen by chance. We only arrive at rock bottom when our habits begin to compound upon one another, when our coping mechanisms have spiraled so out of control that we can no longer resist the feelings we were attempting to hide. Rock bottom is when we are finally faced with ourselves, when everything has gone so wrong,
we are left to realize that there is only one common denominator through it all.
We must heal. We must change. We must choose to turn around so that we will never feel this way again.
When we have a down day, we don’t think: I never want to feel this way again. Why? Because it is not fun, but it’s also not unbearable. Mostly, though, we are somewhat aware that small failures are a regular part of life; we are imperfect but trying our best, and that vague discomfort will pass eventually.
We don’t reach a breaking point because one or two things go wrong. We reach a breaking point when we finally accept that the problem isn’t how the world is; it is how we are. This is a beautiful reckoning to have. Ayodeji Awosika describes his own like this: “You must find the purest, purest, purest form of being fed up. Make it hurt. I literally screamed, ‘I’m not going to fucking live like this anymore!’”
Human beings are guided by comfort. They stay close to what feels familiar and reject what doesn’t, even if it’s objectively better for them.
Be this as it is, most people do not actually change their lives until not changing becomes the less comfortable option. This means that they do not actually embrace the difficulty of altering their habits until they simply do not have another choice. Staying where they are is not viable. They can no longer even pretend that it is desirable in any way. They are, quite honestly, less at rock bottom and more stuck between a rock that’s impinging on them and an arduous climb out from beneath it.
If you really want to change your life, let yourself be consumed with rage: not toward others, not with the world, but within yourself.
Get angry, determined, and allow yourself to develop tunnel vision with one thing and one thing only at the end: that you will not go on as you are.
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THE MOUNTAIN IS YOU
PoetryTHE MOUNTAIN IS YOU By: Brianna Wiest This is a book about self-sabotage. Why we do it, when we do it, and how to stop doing it-for good. Coexisting but conflicting needs create self-sabotaging behaviors. This is why we resist efforts to change, of...
