Sometimes your house burns down, or someone you love gets cancer and dies, or your dog dies, or you are in a car crash, or your partner announces their intention to leave you, or all the money you thought you had disappears and you’re scrambling for ways to feed your kids. If you are me, this is called 2006. 2006 was a year that changed everything for me, a year when it all hit the fan at high speed and life as I had known it was no longer possible. Prior to that, I had thought of life as cumulative. You build equity in your home as an investment in your future – going from owning to renting would be a severe step backwards. You work at your marriage because you have already invested in it and if you keep at it, you reach a point where you will have been married a long time. I considered leaving a marriage a step backwards in life’s journey, no matter what the happiness level of the participants. This kind of thinking suggests an endpoint to life’s journey; it implies we must hold tight to everything we have because we can’t take the next step in our journey if we don’t. The problem here is that if you are spending all of your energy holding onto everything at any cost, you are not really free to blaze your own trail. 2006 taught me that sometimes letting go of everything can actually be the next step in your journey. The rug got pulled out from under me and I went tumbling. The fun thing about tumbling is you never quite know just how you will land. It helps a lot if you know you are smart and strong and if you are confident that no matter how you land you will figure out a way to get back on your feet. Once you know that, you are able to free-fall and see what the universe will do with you. For me, the more I let go of the things being taken from me, the tighter my grip on sanity became. I had to let go of the idea of the house I had and embrace the idea of rebuilding, I had to let go of the husband who wanted to leave me and in so doing I made way for the love and happy marriage I have now. I had to rethink my plan and find a way to feed my kids. I had to say goodbye to one of the sweetest dogs ever, keep his memory and let him go. And, although I am still sad about the loss of my Mom who died of cancer, I had to find a way to be thankful for having a Mom who loved me for as long as she was on the planet and find a way to be good with the rest of my life as an orphan. If I had held onto these things for longer, refusing to let them go and adopting a “why me?” attitude, swimming in despair over my misfortune, thinking about only the bad luck I have and how the universe hates me, I would never have been able to be open to the amazing opportunities I have had since 2006. Horrible crap happens in your life –  you can think of it as happening to you, or you can realize that horrible crap is simply change, and you you can lean into the force of change and let it make you stronger. You could lose everything you have tomorrow and let it throw you into depression and despair – or you could lose everything tomorrow and let it be a chance for you to rebuild your life as you want it to be. Horrible crap happens in your life- but it only breaks you if you let it. Recognizing your part in your life story can make a big difference. So can kick boxing. I took up kick boxing in 2006 because I needed to hit something hard. But mostly the attitude makes the difference, the kickboxing just makes that easier. This week I wrote a letter to someone I love who was feeling overwhelmed and having trouble climbing up out of depression. It goes like this:

Hello baby! I am thinking of you and want to check in. There are a lot of people invested in you and wanting the best for you, and I want you to remember that when you get frustrated with them. I realize there may be something chemical or hormonal going on in your body right now, but I also want you to remember that you have power in this situation. You have control over what you put in your body – medicine, supplements, food. You have control of how much you move your body, creating endorphins and adrenaline. You have control of how you take care of yourself and how much sleep you get. And you have control of how you speak to yourself – what kind of positive self-talk can help you change things around. I think there is a lot of strength in knowing there is so much you can do to change the way your body works – even though that is difficult to see sometimes. Maybe, even if you don’t believe it will help – you can just go through the motions of taking care of yourself you can make changes in your brain from the outside in. This is an area where your academic skills can come in handy – do your homework – write things down, what you eat, what you take, how you feel – and look for patterns. You are so smart and so strong – I really feel like you can use all of the energy force you have to make a difference in your world. I also want you to remember you always have a choice. I know you may feel like you have to do things a certain way because of limited resources – but those are external constraints, you can change what you “need” to do by changing the way you think about them. You are too bright to really believe that there is only one path you can take to get where you want to go. If you look at the lack of sleep and sunlight in your life – it’s not so surprising depression has surfaced. You may be prone to depression, but the things you do, the choices you make – that is the difference between keeping it at bay or allowing it into your life. I just want you to remember you are beautiful, brilliant and amazing with a lot of people who love you. You have a healthy body that works to get you where you need to go and privileges of abundance and education that put you in the top 10% of the world’s population. You have strength, power, and control of your life and I am so proud of you for taking steps to make things great. I love you no matter what. Karen

I have included this letter here because I think it is a letter that any one of us could receive at some point in our lives and have it be relevant. It is easy to slip into the mode where you think that there is nothing you can do, that life sucks for you because someone else has made a decision and you think you have no choice in how you react to it. But you do have a choice. You always have a choice. If it seems like your options are limited, you can create new options. If it seems like life is forcing you down a certain path, step back and realize that it can’t take you anywhere you are not willing to go. If it seems like the universe is out to get you, recognize your own part in what is happening all around you. Chances are your spouse didn’t leave you – chances are you kind of left each other. Chances are that my Mom’s 40 years of dedicated smoking contributed to her getting cancer. The choices we make impact our lives, and even if you are the victim of a random house fire- you still have a choice about how you handle it. Sometimes your house burns down – and sometimes you need a little reminder that you are the only one who has the power to rebuild.         More from Karen:

The Elephant in the Room

The Penis Mom

Journey Back From Oblivion

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