Coming Back to Yourself After a Hard Season

There are years that just take it out of you. Not in one big dramatic moment, but slowly, in layers, until you look up one day and realize you've been running on fumes for longer than you want to admit. Last year was that year for me, and I don’t want to sugarcoat it.  It was, what I like to say, a shit show of glittery jam between a shit sandwich.  There was grief, surgeries, a car accident, a flood, the loss of pets, the unexpected and devastating loss of a parent and lots of healing.   Also, during all of this, we were building a house and moving. And this is the condensed version.

And through all of it I kept moving, because that’s what we are supposed to do, right?  You handle what's in front of you. You show up. You get through it.  (You can’t see my eye roll.)  

If this would have been many years ago and in my “in the trenches of trauma era”, I would have ground to a halt or hyper focused on every little thing.   I would have went into full control mode as my anxiety would have been so high.  So the fact that I kept moving forward is a huge success for me.  And not because it was what I was “supposed” to do.   It is how I have healed on my journey and curated my “toolbox” to support me when things happen.  A few examples are that I take breaks, check in with myself, cry when necessary, be angry, and reach out to my support system.  I showed up and I did get through it, the best that I could.  Grief has its way of showing up. Healing is never one size fits all. Disconnection and presence would battle it out some days.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Grief has its way of showing up. Healing is never one size fits all.

During all of this, some of the very things that have helped to keep me grounded began to quietly disappear. When life gets that heavy, it is the small stuff, the routines and rituals that don't feel urgent but are actually holding you together more than you realize, tend to be let go. They're not flashy. They are subtle and quietly keep you sane, and you don't fully appreciate them until they're gone. This is one of those patterns that sneaks up on almost everyone going through a hard season, and it's worth naming and speaking to, because most people don't connect the dots until they're already feeling the effects.

For me it was the mornings. I love sitting outside early in the day, drinking my tea or coffee, journaling, having conversations with my husband and soaking up the sun before everything else starts. It sounds simple because it is simple, and that's exactly why it was the first thing I let go. I told myself I had bigger things to focus on, which was true. But I was also just being stubborn about it, if I'm honest. What's the point, I thought. Except the absence of those small rituals has a way of accumulating quietly until you feel completely disconnected from yourself and can't quite figure out why, and then you realize it's because you stopped doing the things that kept you aligned in the first place. Funny how that works.

This past week I started going back outside in the mornings. I journaled. I sat in the sun. I also mowed for six and a half hours, accidentally put the wrong fuel in the tractor, and still called it a good day. Coming back to yourself after a hard season doesn't usually look like a transformation. It looks like that. One small thing reclaimed. One quiet morning at a time. 

Sometimes with a side of mechanical error!

Coming back to yourself after a hard season doesn't usually look like a transformation.

If you've had a season that took more than it gave, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. And if you're still in it, I'm not going to tell you to push through or find the silver lining, because sometimes there isn't one and that's just the truth. What I will say is that the disconnection you're feeling isn't a character flaw and it isn't permanent. It's a pattern, and patterns can shift. Somewhere underneath all of it there are small things that belong to you, things that ground you and reconnect you to yourself, and they will be there waiting when you're ready. You don't have to overhaul everything. You just have to start with one thing and let that be enough for now.

Be gentle on yourself.

You’re human.

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More thoughts, more truth, occasionally more mechanical errors. Read More Musings