3 Words That Helped Me Pull Myself Out of a Well of Despair

I hate New Year’s Eve.

Most years, even the good years — even my best years — I’ve sat at home alone feeling depressed. Many years I have been suicidal.

Last year, I was at complete rock bottom.

The dream I was pursuing had turned into my worst nightmare.

For the first time since college, I didn’t belong to a gym. I was doing daily yoga in a corner of my parents’ dining room.

The house was stifling me. Virtual co-working wasn’t working.

I had a supportive network in a private online community, but if I didn’t show up there for a while people just assumed I was busy.

It might have appeared that I was lost. But I wasn’t lost. I knew where I was. I was at the bottom of a deep and dark well, with no dreams, no hopes, not even wishes.

I was isolated, lonely and alone.

I couldn’t see my way into any future, much less a compelling future.

I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.

I couldn’t even get clarity on my 3 words for the year, a tradition I’ve had since 2011.

The moment you think everything is over … that moment is the beginning.

Fast forward to this year.

On the surface, it doesn’t look like much has changed.

I’m still living in a place that isn’t in my control.

I’m struggling with the collision of ADHD and mid-life hormone changes.

Much remains in the mystery in terms of my business and direction in life.

Yet a peek under the surface tells a different story. The seeds sprout under the surface before the break ground, and I feel sproutings.

For the first time in well over a decade, I have some measure of certainty and stability. My confidence is returning, thanks to some serious weightlifting and support from masterful coaches.

While I don’t yet have clarity on a vision for my future, I have greater clarity about what I’m here to do.

I’m almost hesitant to say it aloud, but my outlook is optimistic.

What has caused these shifts? It turns out the 3 words I selected for 2022 tell a lot of the story.

My 3 Words for 2022

I never shared them at the start of the year. So in a twist, I’m sharing them now. I’m making up a new game with my own rules. Rather than sharing the intention for how I wanted to live them, sharing them today allows me to offer a glimpse into how I actually lived them.

Root

You can’t have the fruits without the roots.

Stephen Covey

Rebuilding starts with a solid foundation. Sometimes you must be willing to let it all go, to sit in the emptiness for a long time — longer than feels comfortable, longer than feels practical — before a light starts to emerge.

I’ve never shied away from this. I’ve been willing to dive deep into the well, to sit in my own darkness, to explore the contours of my grief and shame.

This is what enables me to hold this space for my clients in their darkest moments.

Instead of fighting my circumstances, I chose to embrace them.

I rooted into local community by joining a local CrossFit gym.

I’ve spent most of the year working on rebuilding my weightlifting skills, starting with my foot strength.

Move

Movement is a medicine for creating change in a person’s physical, emotional, and mental states.

Carol Welch

Movement is medicine, and it’s the medicine I’m here to practice.

I resolved to not let myself get stuck in any mindset or set of circumstances.

I tabled my group coaching programs and online work beyond this blog to keep myself moving forward. I followed the energy, even when it didn’t seem to make sense to me or anyone else.

I innovated a new coaching niche in family-dynamics coaching: working onsite with the kids to facilitate behavior change in the most crucial after-school hours, while also coaching the parents.

It was a lifeline for me to have people to show up for on a daily basis, outside of the house where I’m living. It gave me a renewed sense of purpose and mission.

I found local yoga studios to practice at so I could get back into community and out of isolation.

The solution to feeling stuck is to move.

Play

Don’t make a distinction between work and play. Regard everything that you do as play, and don’t regard for one minute that you have to be serious about it.

Alan Watts

In all the seriousness of adulting, we often forget that life is just a game, and it’s here to be played.

Working with kids is not something I ever thought I’d do. But it served me in ways I never could have anticipated. The kids reminded me — and I reminded them — that play is fun. That life’s hardest moments can be lightened with an attitude of play.

Once loathe to participate in high-intensity interval classes, I found that I loved them so much that I now wake up at 4:30 am to get to the gym for the 5:30 am class.

I developed new routines around my rituals and changed my game.

I remembered that I love the spirit of friendly competition.

I embraced experimentation with new types of coaching arrangements and clients.

Perhaps most crucially, I stopped trying to fit myself into the mold of expectations that have long been laid down for me.

I realized I’m never going to win at the neurotypical game. So I’m no longer playing that game.

I’m creating games that I can win.

And I’m learning that finding joy in the mystery is just another game to play.

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Wherever this finds you on New Year’s Eve or any other day, I hope you’ll take from this that no matter how dark the darkness feels, it’s all just a game. Eventually, the lights turn on.