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Greetings, friends. How's everyone doing? I've been traveling a bit - I was in Toronto for work this week (my first time!) and tonight I'm off to Miami for an impromptu solo trip. It wasn't until after I booked my trip that I realized it was Ultra this weekend, so wish me luck. It's either going to be the best weekend of my life or an absolute shit show, lol.
Anywayyyyy, I'm talking about something that might seem a little counterintuitive to The Brightside - how to struggle. It feels like everyone I've talked to lately is going through it - we're at the tail end of winter but not quite on the other side, and things just feel hard. Wherever you're at mentally today - consider this a reminder that if you're not feeling your *sparkliest* - that's ok. I love you! Take it easy this weekend.
Let's get into it!
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It’s rainy and cold out. March is the worst, if you ask me. It’s not winter and not spring and its gray and gloomy and I hate it. I’ve been challenging myself to get outside first thing in the morning because apparently that’s good for you - but I think it’s quite rude that on days when the sun is not out, I need to be out there longer. I hope this habit will feel more rewarding when the spring weather actually settles in.
On one of my recent morning walks - a particularly rainy one - I was thinking about a key part of The Brightside process: the struggle. The newsletter naturally gravitates towards the shiny and bright - the calm after the storm - but the truth is, life can feel really tough sometimes. And in the name of nontoxic positivity - it’s so important to look at that.
So, how do you be in the struggle? How do you let it in? And how do you stop gaslighting yourself when trying to move through it? These have been some of the big questions of my twenties.
When shit hits the fan, it’s easy to start rattling off the standard-issue responses: “it could be worse”, “I’m not being grateful enough for what I have”, “I’m just being dramatic”. Maybe this was the messaging we heard back as kids, maybe it's hard to know what's actually "bad" after surviving the pandemic and reading the news every day. The truth is, it's all relative. Sometimes we do just need to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off - but other times, we need to let ourselves process what's hard.
As someone who likes being in control, taking action, moving forward (Leo much?) - the struggle is an incredibly hard thing to sit with. For a long time I thought that emotions like anger, frustration, even sadness were unproductive - thinking, what good will it do me to get mad? My time felt better spent troubleshooting and problem solving.
But of course, even as I was pushing on through - those tough emotions would just sneak back up on me. Maybe I wasn’t directly processing whatever it was I didn't want to feel - but it’d find ways to manifest. Passive aggression, over-reactions to small inconveniences like a bad manicure, letting things at work sink a little too deep under my skin, even bad dreams (especially bad dreams). The hard feelings weren’t going away, I was just distracting myself from them.
One of the best things I ever did for myself in my early 20s was find a therapist. One of the hardest things I ever did in my mid 20s was keep my therapist. I wanted to quit so many times.
I remember asking her “what’s the roadmap, what’s the timeline?” and to my supreme dismay she’d gently tell me that that’s now how therapy works, ushering me to unpack why I needed a plan in the first place. In one of our earlier sessions, about 20 minutes in, I literally asked her if I could leave. It was so physically uncomfortable to let someone see me in my struggle and I just didn’t know how to articulate what I was dealing with.
This is still really hard for me. Even last night, one of my best friends in the world was over for dinner and I was having a really hard moment - and letting her see that, letting myself be “messy” was like … incredibly uncomfortable for me. But letting her see that was important - and it opened up a beautiful conversation.
As hard as "the struggle" can still feel (isn't that kind of the point?) - I’ve learned a thing or two about how to be in it the past few years.
Would love to know how you deal with the tough stuff, too - if you have any tips that work for you, please hit me up!
- Complaining: I grew up in a house where complaining was pretty illegal (hi mom!). If my brother or me would complain, my mom would say “excuse me? What did I hear you say?” then usually make us thank her for the thing we were complaining about. Now if I’m feeling stuck, letting myself complain can feel really helpful - and after rattling off my big huge list, I respond to myself with compassion: “I completely understand how you’re feeling. That really sucks.”
- Flipping the script on “the struggle”: welcoming whatever comes up. You don’t have to be happy it’s there, but there’s a sort of helpful surrender that comes with just letting what’s present exist. Even asking yourself questions like - what is the struggle showing me? What’s not aligned that’s causing me discomfort? What do I need - a yoga class? To ask to for help? To take a walk?
- Learning how to detach myself from the emotion or story present: Don’t mistake this with not feeling the feeling - but, with meditation and mindfulness, I’ve learned the value in remembering impermanence. The storm will pass. I used to get really scared of the blues, because I was afraid I’d get stuck in them forever. But now I know the importance of moving through the feeling to get to the other side.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to allowing. One of my favorite metaphors is Hermione, Ron and Harry passing through the devil’s snare in the first Harry Potter movie. It seems so counterintuitive, but the only way out is through. By relaxing, breathing, they were able to get through to the other side. In my experience, that’s been the most effective way to deal with the hard stuff.
The cleaning it up, the troubleshooting, problem solving - that all comes in time. But sometimes, you just gotta make yourself go on a walk in the rain and complain about it.
PS - don’t let “the struggle” become one more thing to perfect. Just let it in.
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Sending everyone love heading into the weekend.
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Never underestimate the power of retail therapy! This little bag is definitely on my spring/summer moodboard (let's just try to find a Zara dupe ...)
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