Have You Hit Your Emotional Rock Bottom?

Emotional Rock bottom seems to be a running theme with many people I talk to lately and not just those in recovery. People are feeling disillusioned. Things that used to bring a feeling of achievement and esteem are just not hitting the spot anymore. There may be a million reasons why there is this collective change of spirit, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Have you hit your emotional rock bottom lately?

Dark night of the soul

Some of you may recognize this low-mood feeling as a dark night of the soul. It’s not so much depression but more of a deep awakening. It can happen after long periods of stress or enduring unpleasant situations which we have no control over. We begin to question everything in our lives and may become disillusioned with what we thought would make us happy. Re-evaluation of what happiness is, what success means, and how much we actually need all come up during this deep dive into the soul. A desire to simplify our lives can become apparent, maybe a change of career or a slower lifestyle. We realize that many of our cultures are built around dysfunctional outdated paradigms that are no longer fit for purpose.

The learning

It may seem like a massive inconvenience to have to hit emotional rock bottom from time to time. It gets in the way of what we thought we knew. Weren’t we happy in our job? Isn’t this relationship what you’ve always wanted? Why is socializing with friends becoming exhausting and boring? The fact for many is that we have simply inherited conditioned beliefs and behaviors, put them into practice and called them success. We may have never examined if or how they fit with the person we are at our core. During our deep soul dive, we may discover that our lifestyle is completely unnatural for the person we truly are. It can be really tough to examine our conditioned patterns and traumas and realize we act from a place of shame rather than a place of authenticity. For me personally, there is no surer way to disrupt my life than to continue going against my own nature. Many times I’ve pursued a career or relationship because I thought that would make me happy. If it wasn’t aligned with my own true, internal values, I fell flat on my face and end up with nothing.

The lesson

The lesson is always – Know Yourself. There are generations of us trying to repair and heal ourselves from living our lives through other people’s belief systems. Questioning how you exist on this planet means you’re on a journey to healing generational trauma. You’re realizing you haven’t been honoring who you were actually meant to be as a human being. You are simply following somebody else’s rules and ideals because our society sees conformity as honorable. Clearly, when we look around and see what’s happening to our world we know that our societal systems aren’t working. Similarly, the systems you have created for yourself are probably not working either if you keep crashing. But crashing or experiencing emotional rock bottom provides a universe of internal opportunity.

What now?

Well, that is completely up to you. You can shove all that discomfort from not living authentically, where you can’t see it. You can carry on pretending, feeling ill and exhausted or you can choose yourself. Is it hard? Hell yes! However, no drastic changes have to be made. Bit by bit you can transform your living and life into what is truly yours. It starts with honesty and unpacking of emotion and pain. I know, Yuk! It means getting really honest – further yuk – but then you can look at life through different eyes and things just get easier. The gift at the end of all this is you get to know yourself, perhaps for the first time ever. You might actually like the person you find under all those shoulds, rules, regulations and expectations. If you have hit your emotional rock bottom, it’s a gift. Don’t waste it!