Making Sense of The Struggle

This post was originally published at KimOrlesky.com

I love my life and where I am right now. That wasn’t always the case. Several months back I was still struggling. I spent a year and a half in emotional torment, brought on by myself, and I was unable to bounce forward the way I ever could in the past. The stories I would tell myself were ones of being unlovable, unable to find happiness, and my destiny consisted of forever being alone. I struggled because it started with me saying that I deserve more than what I was getting in my previous relationship. But as time moved on, and the man I thought I wanted never returned, and neither did anyone else to fill the hole in my heart, I began to convince myself that maybe I was being too selfish and there wasn’t more I could ever get. Perhaps I would be the only one to ever support my own dreams. It was too much to ask someone else to support my vision for the future. Each day all I could do was convince myself to do the absolute most I was capable of, even if some days that was just go for a walk.

Before that point, I could never understand why people couldn’t move forward from their past. Things end and change, move on. There was no other direction to look but forward. But this time my heart was set on an outcome and it wouldn’t take any other suggestion. My meditations would tell me to be open to possibilities and I would lie to myself that I was allowing new things to enter into my life, when my reality had a single outcome that was never going to happen.

I struggled openly. I would cry from small triggers. When I returned from six months of traveling, the life I convinced myself that would be waiting for me never happened. I would use positive affirmations. I would pray. I wrote countless pleading, angry letters to God and the universe. My dreams never came true. I couldn’t understand it. I was a good person. I did everything right. I gave time and money to charity. I grew and realized the self-indulgent lifestyle I was living previously was fraught with the constant chasing of the carrot on the stick. I was becoming a better person, and yet I suffered.

I wasn’t done growing. I was in a period of expansion. I was in the middle of a forest, staring at the individual trees. I was focused on where I was coming from and not where I was going. It was the process of surrendering to the lesson that things finally started to click for me. I don’t want to diminish the pain of having a relationship end, losing a job, or worse, coping with a death, but it’s when we surrender to the pain, surrender to the moment and allow it, that we actually do grow.

It was a yoga studio in Indonesia when I first learned this lesson. The instructor led the group, playing his coconut guitar, partially singing the instructions, and he insisted the entire class try the splits. In my head I was having a fit. There is no way this could ever be done, I kept telling myself. The instructor insisted that the splits was a position of surrender and not one of force. We don’t push our bodies to go deeper, we allow ourselves to get as deep into the pose as possible, and then we hold still. Time and gravity starts to do it’s part and slowly we find ourselves making slight adjustments and get lower to the ground. It’s painful, we want to get out of the position as quickly as possible, and sometimes we do far earlier than we are actually capable of. But if we hold, if we stay, the pain subsides and we dip further. Little bits at a time, but significant progress for this position.

It was a long journey to get to where I am now. I went to several sessions of therapy. I took a couple of weekend courses on personal development. I had lots of tears over tea with some unbelievably empathetic and compassionate girlfriends. And the few short relationships I did enter into thinking I was ready, ended just as fast as they started, sometimes not so amicably.

I spent many months crying and asking “why me”. During that time I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t given the same loving relationships so many other people had. However this week I was coaching a client and she was struggling with her own breakup. She confided in me her difficulty and how she just couldn’t understand. After one of our sessions, she sent me a long email where she better articulated the haze she was suffering. A haze I knew all too well. There were so many days where the biggest thing I could do was go for a shower. There were days that would feel like I was walking in a permanent fog. During those days I couldn’t possibly imagine my heart ever healing or me ever thinking there could be someone else better suited for me. I couldn’t understand why I was suffering so much pain. What was it all for?

When I read her email I provided her a lengthy response. I told her I knew. I knew what she was going through. I detailed some of my hardest days, and I followed up with all the hopes and happiness I now have in my life. I told her I am happier than ever, and while I was able to empathize with her pain, my struggle those months ago finally started to make sense. My suffering then allows me to help others get through their suffering now. I am now providing hope. My future that looked so uncertain as early as a year ago now looks miraculous and bright. I am thrilled with what I am creating, the people I am connected with, and everything the future has to offer. When I finally gave up the idea of a very specific outcome and surrendered to whatever life will present itself with, it began to open up to the many wonderful possibilities.

As things get dark, remember that the outcome can look so amazing if we do not force what we want and instead allow ourselves to sit with the moment. Know that if you are struggling things will get better, and it’s important to reach out. Tell people. Seek help. You are not the first people to feel this way, and you won’t be the last. There are so many people that will sit with you and let you know they completely understand how you feel. Sometimes that is enough to lift the haze for another day.

Other posts by Kim Orlesky:

How I Inspired My Therapist

Why I Travel Alone

Why I LOVE Being On My Own

Connect Deeper

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