How to Navigate the Messy Middle

I’ve been talking about the messy middle a lot these days as it’s come up in conversations with clients and friends alike. The 'messy middle' is when you are smack dab, right in the middle of a what feels like your own personal living hell. It can feel like everything (wrong) is coming at you at once, like depression or being on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It can be triggered by being out of work, a divorce, or even the loss of a dream.  In a culture obsessed with living your best life, what do you do when you are far from feeling like your your best self? As a human being and life coach who has gone through difficult seasons, done a lot of internal work and helps others through their process, I want to offer a few suggestions if you’re in the midst of your messy middle.

Feel the feelings.

Grief, pain and disappointment are feelings that we tend to want to “get over”.  Grief occurs when we lose a person, a job or a home but sometimes we also grieve what we thought “shoulda/coulda/woulda” been.  We grieve the disappointments of our unmet expectations. Perhaps you thought you would be farther along in your career, in a relationship or you had some other idea of what life should be but isn't yet.  Feeling the feelings is essential to your healing.  What is there for you to feel?  Give the feeling a color. Give it a sound. Describe it. Is it hot or cold?  Focused? Diffused? Where in your body do you feel it the most?  Give yourself permission to express the emotion. Express, not repress.

Practice Self-Love.  Start with Self-Care.

I often distinguish self-love as the things that support your being and how your showing up in the world.  It’s what is going to source you on the inside. It’s creating space for yourself, setting boundaries and practicing self-compassion as examples.  I often find that clients experiencing difficult times, are unable to practice self-love, mostly because they haven’t cultivated that type of relationship with themselves yet.  Instead start with self-care. Self-care are things that we do to take care of ourselves. Here are some self-care practices to integrate into your life:

• Make nutritious meals
• Spend time in nature
• Listen to feel good music
• Hydrate throughout your day
• Organize, declutter and purge
• Get a massage, facial, mani or pedi
• Sit in the sun to increase your Vitamin D
• Take a 20 minute power nap or power walk

Ask for Help.

People don’t ask for help for many reasons but the most common of these is not wanting to look weak or appear vulnerable.  Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It is one of the strongest things you can do. When my brother passed away in 2005, I was devastated in a way that impacted my daily life. I sought the help of a licensed therapist specializing in grief who helped me navigate the loss and impact of my brother’s passing for two years.  Therapy and intentional grieving allowed me to heal in ways that otherwise wouldn’t be possible. In addition to coming to peace with my brother’s death, I was also able to identify unhealthy relationship patterns that I was exhibiting. This allowed me to be more conscientious about the types of relationships I was willing to permit and it has been an ongoing place for me to work on myself.  Today when I talk about my brother, I can laugh, smile and remember him with love.

Don’t Isolate Yourself.

The worst thing you can do during the dark seasons of life is to isolate yourself.  You will only exacerbate the issue and reinforce the narrative that you are alone. The people you love and that love you want to see you healthy and happy.  Let them know you are struggling. Sometimes having family and friends is enough to ease your burden. Sometimes it’s not. Life coaches can be helpful if you are feeling stuck and want to focus on moving forward.  Still, sometimes more formal help through support groups, therapists and psychiatrists can be extremely beneficial. According to the National Institute for Mental Health, almost half of adults (46.4 percent) in the United States, will experience a mental illness during their lifetime and only 41 percent of the people who had a mental disorder in the past year received professional health care or other services.  It’s time to break the stigma. There is NO SHAME in taking care of your mental health. It is the most loving thing you can do for yourself. Get supported.

Allow the Divine. 

In difficult seasons, I highly recommend tapping into your spiritual life.  Don’t have one? Perhaps it’s something to cultivate. This is not about religion but it’s about having a connection to something bigger than ourselves.  In the best selling memoir, Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl reflects on the horrific experience of Auschwitz and what it taught him about the meaning of life.  For Frankl, meaning came from doing purposeful work, love and courage in the face of adversity. Frankl wrote, “If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.  The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under the most difficult circumstances — to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not…Such men are not only in concentration camps. Everywhere man is confronted with fate, with the chance of achieving something through his own suffering.”

Searching for life purpose and meaning is a universal human experience. I don’t know why atrocities like Auschwitz or what’s currently happening at our borders exists but according to Frankl, there is something we can learn through the suffering.  

You aren’t alone.

Everyone goes through hard times.  I am reminded of this as I think back to one of the first small group sessions I led.  One woman spoke up about mental health and almost every other women said. “Me too”. There was a sort of solidarity that formed in that moment.  Frankl said, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” Next week, Holistic Design Strategist and Mental Health Advocate Denise Shante Brown, will be facilitating a conversation to the Courageous Living group (a group coaching program I offer) around mental health and self-care in a way that I couldn't do on my own.  This is a result of saying, “Help Me.”

As I close here, I’ll leave you with a quote by Stephen Levine, author of Unattended Sorrow, “Letting go of our suffering is the hardest work we will ever do.  It is also the most fruitful. To heal means to meet ourselves in a new way - in the newness of each moment where all is possible and nothing is limited to the old.” 

Ruby Garcia is a Leadership and Life Coach working with women in career and life transition and inspiring courageous living. She is Founder of Woman Warrior Coaching, creator of the Courageous Living Group and the Woman Warrior's Ultimate Career Makeover program. Connect with her via email at [email protected]