Just Because You Hit A Bottom Doesn’t Mean You Have To Stay There

For most of us, there has been a time when we’ve hit a bottom, and for many of us, there have been many bottoms on our path, but just because we may find ourselves in a bottom, doesn’t mean we have to stay there. Hitting a bottom can in many ways be a blessing if we use it to propel us in a different direction or it turns out to be a catalyst to change. What’s important about a bottom is to recognize it as one, and to not stay there.

When I look back I had many bottoms before hitting the one that finally brought me to knees. There were so many times I should have asked for help, stopped the downward spiral and changed the way I was living, but I didn’t. We’re ready when we’re ready. And, if we’re lucky we get the chance to make those changes, some of us never do and we stay in that bottom never finding a way out. It is amazing to me how low we’re willing to go before we find the courage to ask for help, or do what we’ve known we have to do but never took the action to do it. The bottom that propelled me to take action was motivated out of fear for where my mental illness had taken me was a pivotal part of my recovery. I don’t know why that night of all the dark nights was the one where I finally got so scared that I reached out for help, but I’m grateful it was. There were many nights of terror prior to that one, and yet I still kept allowing myself to slide deeper into depression and the black hole I was living in. We always have a choice, no matter where we are, where we’ve gone or what we’re thinking, we always have a choice to leave the place we are, to find a better way, we are not stuck unless we tell ourselves we are or just do nothing. At any point in our decent we have the option to get off, to say this is enough and make choices to better ourselves and our situation. As the saying goes, you don’t have to ride the truck all the way to the dump. And there’s power in that. When I was in my disease I felt powerless, I felt like I was on a fast-moving train and I couldn’t get off, but I always had a ticket off that train by picking up the phone and asking for help. I just didn’t do it. That illusion that I couldn’t help myself was false, I can, always, and I did. The moment I spoke my truth, I took my power back, I now had stopped that train or truck and I was at the wheel. The big secret I had carried around was out, and that weight that I was living under was not as heavy, I still had to do the work to get out, but the door was now open.

It is important to notice our bottoms, to look for the signs and those times we fall down a little harder, and maybe stay down. But we have the power to come back from that place, to give ourselves our freedom by acknowledging the place we are, why we’re there, or being open finding out. That key to unlocking the door to get out of those dark places relies on our acceptance of where we are and our willingness to get out. A bottom may be the biggest blessing you have, because it may give you the opportunity to change directions and to live a better life. Look at your bottom as an opportunity to spring to the top. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Have you hit a bottom in your life? What are the signs that you have? Have you hit a bottom before? How many times? What was the last time? What did you do about it? Are you still in a bottom? What have you done about it? What more can you do? What is holding you back? Has hitting a bottom in the past helped you? How so? A bottom can be a wake-up call that we need to make a change, and if we use it as just that, a nudge in the right direction, it doesn’t have to take over and destroy our lives. Use your next bottom to direct you to where you need to go.

S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you