One “L” of Journey: 10 Levers That Helped Me to Rise
My dark days made me strong. Or maybe I already was strong and they made me prove it.
- Emery Lord
When those tough times find you and you feel like you’re falling it can be hard to believe that you have the strength within to overcome and climb your way back up the mountain. It can feel overwhelming, it’s hard and even just identifying where to start can be a challenge in itself.
It is a lonely place when you find yourself in the fall. Anxiety, depression, hopelessness, loneliness and all the other taxes on our mental health that come with the descent leave us languishing. It’s unpleasant. It’s a place I know well, I’ve been there and it wasn’t easy to get out. But I did, I found a way back. I’ve learned that it’s not one thing that enables us to rise, it’s many small things. And once we climb it’s not a steady rise, with every few steps forward there inevitably comes a step back.
It was tough getting back and I learned a lot along the way. What I’m about to share is not professional advice it’s what worked for me and I hope, in sharing, it might help someone else to start their journey back to the light.
So here are my 10 “L”s that helped me to Rise.
Lean In
Nothing is easy when everything is hard. When I fell my instinct was to pull away, isolating myself in pain. It was easier to withdraw than to engage. The reality was, that even though it was tough the right move, one it took me too long to take, was to fight that urge and lean in to my community. It was the friends and whānau who just turned up that I needed. I couldn’t rise by myself, stepping away was easy but made things worse, leaning in was hard but with the support of those who loved me I found a foundation to build upon.
Let Go
When adversity hit me, anger and hate consumed every fiber of my being. Funnily enough, It was not directed at the person who had caused it, it was inward. I hated myself for being so weak that I was unable to arrest the fall. I was in a cycle of making bad choices and I was angry with myself that I was stuck in that loop. With each cycle I fell further, trapping me in a sea of regret. It was like an anchor dragging me further and further into the darkness. To escape I had to let go of that anchor, I had to find forgiveness and compassion. When I did it freed me and slowly I began to resurface.
Learn
One of the toughest lessons for me was to learn that recovery wasn’t a straight line back to the surface. As things got better I would all of sudden, without reason, find myself falling again. With steps forward came steps back. But what I came to understand is that this is how it will always be. Each fall was not as far as the one previous and each step forward gained more distance. I came to learn that bad days were just part of being human, that with profound loss it is only natural that emotions will resurface. By learning that I was able to see that the light was still there and I grew to believe that I could always find my way back.
Look
At my lowest it seemed that there was no road forward. The steps seemed like they only went down. It was as if I forgot to turn around and look up. It was so easy to be consumed by a sense of inevitability and that feeling stole hope away from me. These tricks our mind plays on us seem so unfair, but we can fight back. It takes strength to turn and look up. It’s easier to walk down that hill, but if we choose what’s hard, if we look for solutions, if we look for the light and if we look for the courage inside us, we can start to climb.
Lift
It was amazing how the emotional hit transferred to physical hurt and weakness. In the days after losing Nayan I felt physically battered and bruised. Walking even a few steps took all my energy. I’m lucky that I’ve always been an active person and so for me, in a short space of time my body began to crave movement and care. Whether it was lifting weights or my feet from the ground as I ran, the choice to care about my physical wellbeing was essential. It gave me time to process and gave me the belief that if I could lift myself physically then maybe I could lift my mind and my emotions out of the depths they were swimming in.
Link
Every link in the chain is important if one is missing the desired function can not be achieved. When I knew that I couldn’t keep falling, when I wanted to rise and when I no longer wanted to identify with the man I’d become I was able to see where I wanted to go and what I wanted to achieve. But there was an abyss between these states of mind. I knew where I was and where I wanted to go and somehow I had to link these together. I knew that if I didn’t change how I was behaving then I’d remain where I was. So even though I did not believe it I made the choice to behave in the way that my healed self would. Slowly the behaviour stopped becoming the lie, it became the light and the hope that my future was not stolen from me and that a better one awaited.
Live
Making the choice to cross that abyss was the catalyst for my healing. By just behaving as the man I wanted to be I found that I could live in the present and not be anchored to the past. It allowed me to see that those I was leaning into were in my corner and it led me to appreciate the small things. These started as small glimpses of the future, they were gifts that I was unwrapping and they allowed me to be grateful for what I did have. It had been easy to focus on what I didn’t have, by focusing on what I did the light shone a little brighter.
Light up the room
When you start to climb and when you cross that threshold where hope appears once more you start to live and then like a bolt of lightning the room lights up and you find joy again. You laugh like you mean it, you dream about what you will do and you allow yourself to not be confined to misery, you give yourself permission to have fun. You find happiness and those wonderful emotions that you thought were gone forever, return.
Legacy
I’ve always felt a calling to give and to make a difference. I want to leave a legacy that's seen as a force for good in the community. My greatest teacher was my son. He carried a wisdom and compassion that was beyond his years. He was an old soul in the body of a four year old. He taught me that joy was in the moments we give to others. That others matter and that when we take the time to hear their story we become richer for it. His legacy is profound, he mattered to me and I want his sacrifice to not go unnoticed. My legacy has to be to deliver what his would have been: to do something and be someone that he would have been proud to call his dad.
Love
Love is what created the fall and love was what brought me back. The love of a parent for their child is beyond what words can describe. So when fate separated me from that love, it was devastating, it broke my heart. When I lost him it was like all the love and light in the world vanished. When I walked into my house on that day that my city was shaken, seeing my wife and my other son, what I saw was love. It had been there all along and when I found it again I could lean in and could start to find my way back.
This was my journey and yours will be different. For me to rise I had to,
lean in to those who loved me,
let go of the things that were dragging me down,
learn that the tides would change but the light was still on,
look towards the light and turn away from the darkness,
lift myself up by taking care of my health,
link the darkness to the light and choose where I would spend my time,
live in the present and be grateful for the gifts I have,
Light up the room and appreciate the joy, embrace the laughter, remembering that it’s okay to have fun,
Let my story be my legacy that gave me purpose to make a difference,
love those who are there with you, who care for you and are there to help you RISE.
To learn more about my journey, you can purchase the first chapter of my memoir at the link below.