How To Crawl Out
Life has a way of punching you in the face and I've learned through my own experiences your definition, my definition, and other's definitions of "hard" are all completely different.
In fact, you could experience a difficult event and navigate it emotionally and physically with ease at one point in your life and run into the same difficulty years later and fall straight on your face. Your own definition of hard may vary year to year...or even day to day.
My point is, you may be flying high right now or you maybe struggling to keep your chin up. We've all been in both places, but when life does come looking for a fight...do you know how to work your way out and not get dragged down?
When life hits, there seems to be a common pattern to how we respond and what we experience.
Stage 1: The Hit. It could be news, loss, betrayal, failure...whatever it is, your nervous system lights up.
Stage 2: Doubt. You start to question yourself. Your path. Your value.
Stage 3: Blame. You start to direct the pain at others' trying to push it away. You don't want responsibility whether it's your fault or not.
Stage 4: Stuck: You withdraw. You don’t want advice or pep talks, you just want quiet. You've repeated your stance enough that you believe it's truth whether it is or not.
This is the descent. It’s the part we all want to skip, but you can’t rise until you’ve hit the ground.
So how do you climb back up?
I hate to start this way but it's by looking elsewhere. When you feel pain, how could you possibly think to look anywhere else? Pain is felt, on the inside, so it tends to trigger an inward response. But, restoration is discovered through objectivity.
It's stepping outside the situation to see things for what they are instead of how they feel.Zoom out of the situation and start taking in the facts. Don't get me wrong, those facts may be hard and it doesn't mean they won't still hurt...but it's important to assess.
This gives you the opportunity to take on agency. To take the reins of the situation. Your struggle may not be your doing, but it is your responsibility to get out of. Self regulation gives you the power to no longer be the bystander but the author of the story.
Gaining this clarity gives you the cognizance to question your certainty. Questioning your certainty is crucial. All the stories you've been telling yourself out of emotion are now coming into question. When you are certain of something it snuffs out possibilities.
There is no where to go because YOU KNOW. You have to let go of what you "know" and start to ask yourself what is actually true...not what you feel.
Step out of this narrative. Stop trying to fix the situation from the same point of self focus. Pain narrows your vision until all you can see is the problem. Gaining agency widens the frame again. In this wider view, the next step forward often appears, not because the pain is gone, but because you’ve finally stopped letting it steer.
At some point, the noise quiets. The emotions once felt like a flood start to settle into ripples. You begin to see healing isn’t about escaping what happened, it’s about learning to see it clear enough it no longer controls you. That’s where strength starts to take root again. Not in pretending you’re fine, but in facing the truth and choosing to move anyway.
Today’s Forced Challenge: I want you to FORCE yourself to attack at least one of these challenges:
-
Let someone help: Without explaining why you need it.
-
Stop numbing: Turn off every distraction for one full hour.
-
Zoom out: Look at your situation like it’s happening to a friend.
-
Write three facts: That are true, no matter how you feel.
-
Sit in silence: Ten minutes. No phone. No noise. Just you and your thoughts.
There’s another side to all of this. Sometimes you’re not the one getting hit. Sometimes you’re the one standing next to it, watching someone you care about unravel.
Most people rush to fix. They offer advice, distractions, quick hope, or silver linings. It comes from love, but what the other person usually needs isn’t a solution...it’s your presence. They don’t need a flashlight pointed in their face; they need someone willing to sit with them in the dark.
You can’t undie someone. You can’t force someone to tell your friend sorry. You can't renew a loss. Trying to repair their pain only adds pressure. Sitting with them eases it.
Your job isn’t to fill the silence, it’s to hold it. Let them cry without rushing to comfort. Let them talk without shaping their words. Let them be angry without trying to calm them down. That’s how trust rebuilds.
The greatest gift you can offer someone in pain is the space to feel it without being alone in it. That’s not passive, it’s sacred. When you stop trying to fix what hurts and start standing still beside it, you remind them they still matter even when they’re broken.
Sometimes love looks like taking action on the thing. Sometimes it looks like sitting in it.
“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” — Seneca
Share On Social