41: What’s Actually Happening When It Feels Like Everything’s Falling Apart

Discussed in today's episode:

🌱 Working through big transitional seasons of life

🌱 Seeing the hidden benefit behind everything going to sh*t

🌱 Riding the wave of unrest

🌱 The importance of using your emotions as guidance for realignment

🌱 What always comes after turbulent seasons of life

🌱 Grieving parts of your past/life

🌱 How to bounce back from a rough time with more ease and grace

& more!

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Xoxo, Reagan🤍🌱

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello my friends, welcome back to the organic podcast. I'm your host, Reagan, in today's episode, we're talking about how to get through seasons of life when it feels like everything is going to shit. This is probably going to be a little efficient of an episode. So without further ado, let's get into it. Welcome to the Organic Podcast. I'm your host, Reagan, mechanical engineer, lifelong athlete, and recovered overachiever, here to empower you to pursue your highest potential and live freely as your happiest, most organic self. Every week we'll dive into topics ranging from personal growth, mindset hacks, psychology, and a blend of science and spirituality to give you all the tools you need to stop living on autopilot and start creating a life of freedom, meaning, and fulfillment as your most organic self. If you're ready to become the best person of yourself, then we're like this episode is currently sponsored by Past Reagan and semi-current Reagan, even though I'm not really going through like a really rough patch right now or anything, knock on wood, knock on fucking wood, because we do not need to summon that. But I've gone through periods of life in the past, as we all have, where it feels like everything is just up in the air or there's a lot going on or it's a super turbulent season and you're like, yo, what the fuck's going on? Why does it feel like everything is literally falling apart? Like, can something work out? Can something work out for me? Why does this have to feel so hectic or heavy or unfortunate or just like, oh, like, why do I have to go through this? Why do I have to go through this really uncomfortable period of life? And it with my sage wisdom and going through a couple chapters like this, maybe not to, you know, the deepest degree that others have experienced when it comes to like more tragic things per se or heavier things. I'm more talking about my experience comes from big life transitions. And it can feel really scary. Like anyone going through any kind of big change or a feeling of everything getting kind of rearranged in your life, it can be very scary and unsettling because we love our comfort zone. We love what's familiar and we love what feels safe. And when we don't really have as much consistency as we are used to in whatever area of life it might be that this applies to for you, it can feel really, really uncomfortable. And it can feel like everything's falling apart, and you literally just want to be like, what the fuck is going on? Can I figure out what is what is happening with my life? This was particularly prominent for me when I was between jobs after graduating college. So graduated college, had an internship, completely pivoted my entire path of life, decided to not go to grad school, took three months off of work, and eventually found a job that I really, really loved, truly a dream job, like beyond my biggest blessings. But in this period, in the in these liminal three months that I had, I had a lot of time where I was like, holy shit, like literally, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I really don't know what I'm doing. Like I was applying to jobs, I was trying to figure it out. I had this worry that I was just not gonna get a job for some reason, even though I'm like am completely competent and have experience from like past internship, whatever. Like I I just had this fear that I wasn't gonna get a job, or my parents were disappointed in me, and like I wasn't doing what people wanted me to do, and everyone else on the outside would be like, what the fuck is she doing with her life? She doesn't have anything together. What are you doing after college? What are you doing after college? What's going on? Blah blah blah blah. Like I just had so many worries in my head about how others perceived me, and obviously also the safety of like, okay, I need to get a job, like I can't be unemployed forever. I really can't. And honestly, I was only looking for six weeks. Six weeks, and I found a job within I I was looking for like, yeah, like a month, a month and a half. So I feel like I was pretty lucky because I don't know about anyone else listening to this episode, but current state of people I've heard of looking for jobs in the good old US of A seems to be a little a little difficult. So I think I was lucky there, but nonetheless, my point is this period was very transitional and it was very stressful. And when I was going through it, I was like, okay, like I understand the whole point of okay, just trust, everything's breaking out, what's coming is better than what you already had, blah blah blah. But I completely understand that you can only tell yourself, oh, I trust that this is all happening for a reason for so long. Because you will get to a point when things are really feeling shitty and everything shit is literally just hitting the fan and everything's just going all over the place, whatever that looks like for you. You get to a point where you're like, okay, but actually when is this gonna get better? Like, when is this gonna stop? When is something gonna change? When is something gonna shift? And I want to bring to light the fact that that feeling of discomfort and that feeling of pain and worry is an opportunity for you to see that there is benefit to that. As fucking annoying as that sounds, there is benefit to that season of life because it is an opportunity for you to lean further into trust, and you also have more control over kind of shaping how your life turns out or how things look for you because so many things are up in the air. Like if you think about it, a time where everything feels like it's falling apart is a really great time to restructure your life, restructure a specific area of your life or maybe your whole entire life, but you're kind of being given a fresh slate. Like things are being cleared out so that you actually have the space to be able to create a life that is better than the one that you were living before. This I feel is universally true. Like, it always happens where even when it doesn't feel like things are working out or everything's going to shit and it just doesn't make any sense, it always turns out at the end of these seasons that it works out better than you could have gotten yourself otherwise. Like things turn out better the way that they worked out compared to how you thought it wanted to work out, at least in my experience, and I've heard a lot of other people speak on this before. So as much as it sucks to be going through something that everything feels really turbulent, I think it's really empowering to remember that you actually have the ability to control the direction that your life goes in and how things look for you when you s especially when you're going through these periods, because like I said, everything's kind of being cleared out, rearranged, shifted around. And as much as that gives the illusion of not having any sense of control whatsoever, you actually do have probably a solid bit of control, at least in terms of how you decide to show up, the kind of energy you decide to bring to every day, and the decisions you decide to make when it comes to how you are going to see this. Are you gonna see this as a blessing? Are you gonna lean into trust? Are you going to put yourself in the situations that you know are gonna give you the best opportunity to align you to what is best for you or what you want, or are you just gonna say, what the fuck? I hate everything, life is horrible, I'm just gonna go say fuck everything and I don't know, curse at this guy. Something I've also learned is that when we feel emotions, which I hope you usually feel emotions on a daily basis, but feeling your emotions, especially ones that feel heavier or more potent or just really uncomfortable, those don't have to be experiences that are all quote unquote bad. Your emotions, your discomfort, that is your body, your brain, your soul giving you signs that something is out of alignment, something is making you uncomfortable for a reason. And as much as we perceive these emotions to be bad or not ideal, whatever you want to call it, they're actually gifts. Because if you were not miserable, if you were not uncomfortable, if you were not going through a period where you felt like things weren't working out for you and you were just stuck and you didn't like it, and you've like just felt all this sense of just like friction within yourself, if you didn't feel so uncomfortable, you might not be driven to change. You might not be driven to actually shift your life around or lean into, I don't know, the chaos of whatever season it is that you're going through. And when you lean into these emotions and you look at them as a source of data for understanding that, okay, this is my soul, my body trying to tell me something. Great example. When I worked that internship that I mentioned before, and I really did not enjoy the work setting because it was just the normal cubicle farm, nine to five, inside every single day for the rest of your life with the freaking LED lights, like, oh my god, I'm crawling out of my skin thinking about it. No offense to anyone who works in that format. It's just it did not, it did not work for me. It did not work for me. But I think about how miserable I was at that job, and I'm like, wow, thank God. Thank God that I literally hated my job so much, and it made me so uncomfortable that I actually left. That I said, I'm not gonna do this, I cannot do this plan anymore. I'm not doing this, like I'm completely shifting my life around. No matter the consequences, no matter how scary it feels, like this is not where I'm supposed to be. And I know because of how absolutely soul sucked and miserable I feel at the end of every day. And guess what? Did it suck when I was going through it? Absolutely, I was miserable, quite literally. Like I don't when I think back to that era of my life, I'm just like, oh my god, I never want to relive that. I never want to relive that. But of course, reflecting on it now, that misery, that pain, that discomfort is what fueled me to be able to make the push to actually get me in the situation that I'm in right now, where I feel such a deep sense of gratitude for my life, for my job, for my internal sense of peace, for just everything, like on a regular basis. I feel so blessed, so grateful, so happy. And I would not be here where I am today if I did not go through that period of feeling like absolute shit. And what that's what it's of such the irony is like, you know, it's the rainbow after this storm. It feels like every time after you go through a turbulent season of life, or when things are really feeling up in the air, it feels like everything's falling apart, everything comes together better than you could have imagined. When we go through these periods of life where things feel rough and we're feeling heavy emotions and everything's just up in the air, a lot of people tend to not want to feel those emotions. They want to push them down. It's it's human nature to suppress what feels uncomfortable. And what's ironic is the fact that riding the wave of your emotions and allowing yourself to fully feel through the process is actually going to allow you to move through those heavier, denser, more uncomfortable emotions faster. Emotions don't have to be a super hard thing to feel or deal with or conquer. They actually sort themselves out quite easily and quite quite quickly. That's a fun word to say, quite quickly, but anyways, they they sort themselves out pretty quickly when you actually give them space to be felt. And I this is something I'm actively working on. I am not good at feeling my emotions per se on a regular basis, and it's something I have to literally actively prioritize and make space for. And I think a lot of us can relate to that because we're not taught how to regulate your emotions and how to make space for them, and that it's okay to feel and it's okay to be angry or sad or feel grief for moving beyond different seasons of your life and having to leave experiences, people, places, things behind in order to move forwards and keep growing. Like no one tells us that it's okay to go through these periods, it's okay to feel this way, and it's safe to do so until obviously we go through life, we move on, we listen to podcasts, we see people on Instagram, and we learn all about emotional regulation and the nervous system and do the whole nine yards to figure out all of this information that we were never given in the first place. But when you ride the wave of unrest, you actually allow yourself to move through these seasons with a lot more ease and a lot less friction. You will figure things out, things will get better, life will change, everything will keep progressing and moving. And guess what? You're gonna go through seasons of highs, of lows, and when everything feels like it's falling apart. I'm assuming that not all of us have experienced this just once. A lot of us has probably experienced this kind of feeling multiple times in our life. So why don't we just accept the fact that instead of trying to swim against the current, it's a lot easier to just literally go with the flow, understand our emotions and flow through them with them, and accept the fact that the human experience, the human life is cyclical. We are going to go through seasons of unrest, seasons of peace, seasons of happiness, seasons of challenge. And I think I really do see that as the most beautiful thing that we can experience as human beings. It's a very special part of existing on this world. And as annoying as it sounds to think that way when it feels like everything's falling apart, I am saying this as someone who has gone through both sides of feeling like everything is all over the place, turbulent, falling apart, and also feeling like everything is peaceful. And I know that there are more seasons to come going through both of these things, but I feel like there's such value to understanding that you can go through these seasons of life with so much more grace and ease when you learn to trust the process and surrender to your emotions and just ride the wave, let them flow, not suppress yourself, not tell yourself I shouldn't be here right now, why is this happening? Why is this happening to me? And going into kind of the victim energy, but instead choosing to be intentional with your thoughts and the energy that you're putting out and trust that things, even if if if things feel like shit right now, I promise you, there is better on the way. If there's one thing you take away from this, let it be this quote the universe, God, whatever you say. I'm just gonna say the universe. The universe never says no. It only says yes, not right now, or I have something better for you. That is fucking facts, guys. That is fucking facts. It is so true, and I know it might sound cheesy, but like I'm telling you, it is so true. So apply this to whatever part of your life you might need to hear this in right now. I hope that this episode gave you guys something to reflect on. Go be your most organic selves, and I'll see you in the next one.