136: Why Hitting Rock Bottom Is The Biggest Blessing: Cancer, Death & Divorce

Struggling with the aftermath of hitting rock bottom? Discover how to transform those lowest moments into powerful catalysts for growth and healing. In our latest episode, we share why experiencing a "dark nights of the soul," or rock bottom moment whether through personal loss, illness, or other life challenges, can actually be a turning point for profound self-discovery and transformation. Through our own stories, we offer tools and insights to help you find strength and resilience in the face of adversity.

We delve into the inspiring journey of Wim Hof, who used cold therapy to overcome personal trauma, emphasizing the lessons that come from fully experiencing and acknowledging pain. We highlight the power of choice in navigating toxic relationships and self-destructive behaviors, advocating for self-awareness and the pursuit of healthier, more fulfilling lives. Additionally, we explore the transformative impact of somatic release techniques like breathwork and yoga in processing and releasing stored trauma, aiding both emotional and physical healing. Join us as we discuss how to turn life's lowest points into opportunities for growth and empowerment.

Whether you're in a rock bottom moment or experiencing a dark night of the soul. Remember you can make it though.

xoxo,
Sara & Hannah

Chapters:
00:01 - 2:00 Intro

2:01 - 3:30 Intro to the topic, we talk about why rock bottom moments are the biggest blessings, sharing a bit about what rock bottom/ what a dark night of the soul is

3:45 - 9:51 Our personal experience at rock bottom, Sara experiencing cancer as a child, Hannah going through a divorce

9:51 -  11:00 Gratitude for the rock bottom moment and why it was a positive change

11:00 - 13:50 - Why the low moments bring gratitude

13:50 - 19:00 Experiencing rock bottom and seeing the lessons from it, victim mode and experiencing your emotions

19:00 - 30:00 How to create practice to get out of a rock bottom moment, tools, tips and methods to build yourself back up

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Chapters

• 0:00 Rock Bottom Moments
• 14:09 Transforming Rock Bottom Moments Into Growth
• 21:51 Navigating Rock Bottom Moments With Empowerment

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

When you're in those moments, you have the opportunity to say like enough is enough. I will no longer allow people to treat me in this way, I will no longer treat myself in this way, and it's just an opportunity for you to start seeing, like, where are some of these dysfunctional behaviors that I'm exhibiting and how can I transform these?

Speaker 2: 0:20

What's up? Mindfully Moody girls, we are back. I'm Sarah. I'm joined by my best friend and co-host, Hannah. We are back with you for another episode on self-improvement, spirituality, all of the things about improving your life so you can live to your truest potential. If this is your first time joining us, what's up? Thanks for coming to hang out with us, and we're going to just jump right into some updates that we have for you all.

Speaker 2: 0:50

Which is our first update, which is very exciting we just launched our premier course from self-doubt to self-love in 30 days and it is available now for 50% off for our Mindfully Moody listeners. So go check out the link in the show notes. This course includes all of our formula on how we started. When we first got into our healing journeys, we first started getting interested in personal development, so we used our own learnings to create this course to bring you exercises, tips, techniques, information, journal prompts, a bunch of information. It is a 75-page workbook plus 15 in-depth videos on various topics that are all about self-doubt, self-acceptance and self-love. So go check that out if you are in a place where you feel like you need a little bit of extra support and you're ready to just jumpstart your healing journey.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Yes, pop in there and get it, girlies. So good to be back on another episode. I feel so grateful to be able to have this space to talk to you and process and explore new ideas, and I'm really excited about this topic that came up Today. We're going to be talking about why rock bottom moments are the biggest blessings, and I know what people call it.

Speaker 1: 2:23

Rock bottom moments know us in the spiritual world.

Speaker 1: 2:25

Sometimes we call it the dark night of the soul, but we've all had it right.

Speaker 1: 2:30

We've all had those moments in life where we just feel like we're truly at the bottom of the barrel sad, depressed, anxious feeling like we can't go on another day.

Speaker 1: 2:41

And I wanted just for us to have this conversation on the podcast to bring some light to rock bottom moments because for me in my life, I think that those worst quote unquote worst moments of my life ended up being the biggest blessings and taught so much lesson, like so many lessons to me, and really helped me understand, like, who I am, what it is that I want and why I'm here on this earth. So we're going to kind of walk you through today, talking about our experiences with the dark night of the soul, rock bottom moments and how we kind of made it out and how we can kind of turn those difficult moments into moments that actually we're defining for us and who we are in our lives. So yeah, I don't know, I would love to just for us to kind of explore and like chat a little bit about like some of those moments that we've experienced that were really critical in our life so far, that were really critical in our life so far.

Speaker 2: 3:46

Yeah, it's so interesting because when you're thinking about, okay, what are my rock bottom moments, you know, and you go back to, okay, what are some of the most painful moments in my life and some of them, you know, you can still feel that pain, for sure but other ones, I look back and I'm like wow, I don't, like I can't believe that that happened. And then I let something get me that low in the moment, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1: 4:15

Yeah, yeah, 100%. And as I was thinking about these moments, I feel like rock bottom moments come in different variations and exactly like some are self-induced and then some are completely out of your control. And as I was looking at our notes, like you know, that's what came out to me, because sometimes we don't have control over when we hit those moments. Like one moment that comes to mind for me that was extremely rock bottom moment was when my dad passed, and that was something that I had no control over. And it's interesting how you go through different rock bottom moments in your life at different ages and how you deal with them and how you process them and how you experience them and the things that you learn from them at different times is just can be so different, depending on what you know, what stage of life you're in and how those moments come into fruition in your life.

Speaker 2: 5:14

Absolutely when I was thinking about what is my biggest rock bottom moment. I think about myself having cancer when I was a teenager which was completely outside of my control, right Like I never expected that something like that would happen to me, especially at the age that I was. I had no ability to really change anything other than the way that I dealt with it, which is a big part of. You know the rock bottom process as well. How do you rebound from it, how do you deal with it, how do you accept it? But then I also think about or reflect on rock bottom moments of you know me bullying myself for so many years about the size of my body and then when that reached a breaking point for me and how that was actually self-induced. So it's really interesting and it's really like a topic that I'm curious about of why do these things happen to us and how can we use them to propel ourselves forward rather than bury our head in the sand, which so many people end up doing when they hit rock bottom.

Speaker 1: 6:23

Yeah, so many people end up doing when they hit rock bottom. Yeah, so many people do. And I think for the podcast, I think what we do is try to give people tools to be able to make it out alive in situations right and create awareness about what is going on. And as I was thinking about this episode, like I wanted to share one of my rock bottom moments that were like a little bit self-induced and kind of how that experience went. Um, for it was 2020.

Speaker 1: 7:05

I was in a relationship, a marriage, that was extremely toxic, unhealthy, um, and, honestly, like pretty soul sucking, where there was just a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression, a lot of stress, and it came to a point where this marriage was no longer going to be a thing. And in that moment, after I got married and thought I was going to be with the person for the rest of my life, and we came to the decision that we were going to get a divorce and separate and no longer be together, like I truly thought that that was the end of my life. Like I was sick. I was on the floor crying. I was so depressed, I was so embarrassed. I literally look in the mirror and just see like no life left, like it was such a hard moment that like I didn't even want to get up in the morning, I didn't want to do anything, I didn't want to go to work, I didn't want to talk to friends, I didn't want to talk to family, I literally just wanted to go into a cave and literally die because I thought it was the worst thing that could have ever happened.

Speaker 1: 8:21

And being that low and that sad about your life causes a lot of pain, but at the same time, it's such an opportunity for growth to say like I am at the lowest point that I felt like I've ever been at.

Speaker 1: 8:43

There's only up from here. And gosh, am I so grateful that I experienced that Like if I was to stay stuck in a marriage that I was extremely unhappy in and was in a relationship with somebody who treated me like crap and didn't actually get to get the true love that I wanted to Like. I'm so grateful that that happened Now. It gives me a new opportunity, a new lease on life to experience something different, and I would never not want to have that pain, to experience what I'm now experiencing, because that's how much it taught me of like that lesson of like the whole marriage and like being in that space and that being with somebody like that, like I'm so grateful for it to have that moment, because now I get to live the life that I do, because I've learned so many lessons that brought me to that rock bottom moment.

Speaker 2: 9:42

Yeah, Wow moment, yeah, wow, yeah, it's. It's so crazy to even like hear you reflect back on that. Obviously, I was there at this point in your life when that was happening and it was also the craziest time. It was also the craziest time. It was like, I guess, right before COVID hit. So when COVID started, like you were still definitely in like healing era, like you were still struggling, and then you were literally locked in your apartment.

Speaker 1: 10:20

So that really compounded things, but it was. I will never forget this. We were in Tahoe and that's when it was like OK, like yeah, I think I'm getting a divorce, and I was like so depressed but I was like let me just go with my friends. And then on the way back, fauci was saying like something's gonna happen, the world is shutting down. So it's like the world's shut down.

Speaker 2: 10:40

You're like what the hell is my life?

Speaker 1: 10:44

what is going on, what's happening on top of all of the fear of the unknown of co, unknowns of covid? Like that was a crazy time, but also, again, the best time. What better time to literally be able to stay home and cry, not have to face people at the office and like, not have to like, and just to have time to reflect and be home like in a nesting mode. I'm so grateful that COVID happened during that.

Speaker 2: 11:11

Honestly, yeah it, it. What's so crazy about this is you hear people talk about oh, I hit this low in my life and now here I am, on this, up and high, and I learned on this up and high and I learned all these lessons and, oh my gosh, I'm so happy that this happened. But when you are in that moment, you are not happy that this is happening at all. You can't see any sort of clarity or understand how this could ever be contributing to your growth. You're thinking that this is pulling you into the depths of hell. You're thinking that this is pulling you into the depths of hell. You're thinking that this is bringing you down, bringing you to a place that is so low that how are you ever going to be able to get up? So it's really also just so interesting to think about the resilience that we have as human beings, the perseverance that we have, the motivation that we have for when we experience something that takes us to such a low low that then we can actually integrate the learnings from that experience to say this was a good thing.

Speaker 2: 12:19

That happened in my life, and I think about me having cancer when I was a teenager, and that was definitely the darkest time in my life. I could never see through the good, see through to the good in that right Like. I'm 32 years old today and I've never experienced a worse time in my life than this period because, you know, I was sick, I was extremely depressed, I was having extreme, extreme anxiety and I had to be homeschooled because I couldn't even get out of bed. Like it was literally terrible. I felt so alone. I felt like, even though I had the support of my parents you know, you're a teenager, so you're like no one supports me.

Speaker 2: 13:07

you know, already, even if you're healthy. So you know, I felt so alone and I couldn't see any good in the experience at all. I was bullied at school during this time. Everything was just like taking me lower, lower and lower, and I think that it actually took me a long time to climb up out of that rock bottom place yeah probably like years and years and years, like through the rest of my teens and then through my early 20s.

Speaker 2: 13:45

I think that that put me in a place that I had to rebuild my confidence, my strength, my resilience in a way that was sustainable for me, that wasn't fake, that was authentic and true. So even you know, you can have a rock bottom moment that, like you can rebound. You hear these stories, oh, I hit this low. What moment that, like you can rebound? You hear these stories, oh, I hit this low.

Speaker 2: 14:09

What's coming to my mind right now is Wim Hof. You know, do you know his story A little bit? Like his wife committed suicide and he had I think he also lost a child. Potentially I'm sorry, don't quote me on that if that's not true lost a child, potentially, I'm sorry, don't quote me on that if that's not true. Um, but he had like extreme trauma in his adult life that then like look at him now, you know, but he like got really into cold therapy and all of these things and like just completely took his rock bottom moment and like made it into a phenomenon, you know, made it. So other people saw his strength and got inspired to heal from their rock bottom moment. So it can, it can happen quick, it can happen slow, and that's okay, because for every single person you're going to have a different experience.

Speaker 1: 15:05

Yeah, and I think that sometimes it might be okay to allow yourself to be in victim mode, like to be in like the shit and say like why is this happening to me? This is so unfair. Like that is so unfair for somebody to have cancer, you know, it's so unfair for someone to lose their dad at age 17. It's okay sometimes to be in that victim mode, but I think it's like how do you get out of that mode right, and make this a success story, like your success story and like the things that drive you to be a different person, right? Like I think it's so hard to like look and see the positives from having cancer. But then when you can shift it and say like what did that teach you?

Speaker 1: 15:59

Yeah, you struggled, you experienced bullying, you were down, you know you were feeling depressed and like there were so many lessons in that that I think probably took you know over feeling depressed and like there were so many lessons in that that I think probably took you know over time to discover. And that that's the same with, like losing my dad. Like obviously that's so unfair, like I don't want to ever experience that. I like it was the most. I don't wish that upon anybody.

Speaker 1: 16:19

But, like over time, it's like what did that teach me? Like you know, to how important presence is with people and like giving love to people and like showing empathy, and like a lot like I spent years in victim mode of like so unfair that my dad died. But like now, over the years, it's like I'm so grateful that I got to experience that life with him and that he taught me these things and that I like learned to love in a different capacity, because I know what it feels like to lose somebody, you know. And I feel like it's about us looking at what lessons that we can take in those rock bottom moments and integrate them in our lives to, yeah, be more loving, um, be more caring, kind and just live a better life from it rather than have a worse life because of it.

Speaker 2: 17:13

Totally, and I think you bring up a really good point about the victim piece, because I think until you are actually able to heal the victim mentality that is associated with any sort of rock bottom low moment, you're not going to be able to find the gratitude in it yeah right, and I'm not saying that you can never phase back into that victim mode, because I think that that's just the journey of being human and we.

Speaker 2: 17:42

The healing journey is not linear and we all know that. Anyone that's on a healing journey knows that. However, if you are still oh, this happened to me, this happened to me, this happened to me, which I wore for a long time about having cancer. I wore for a long time about other challenging moments in my life, about me and my relationship with my body. I've never been the skinny girl. I've always struggled.

Speaker 2: 18:09

I never knew what it was like to, you know, have all these guys like me and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever story that you're telling yourself, that victim mode, that you are staying in that victim mentality. How are you then able to see the gratitude for the situation? Right Me, having cancer, just similar to what you were saying about you. Losing your dad, brought me the gift, the true gift, of the meaning of life. Right, enjoyed that it is meant to be full and abundant and creative, and all of these things that I maybe wouldn't have ever gotten to if I didn't have cancer, or you maybe would have never gotten to if you didn't lose your dad, or you may never have gotten to the understanding of what you need, want and desire in a partner if you wouldn't have went through your divorce right. So it's like all of these things happen for us, even when they are very painful things, everything is about mindset.

Speaker 1: 19:21

Yeah, and people will experience so many things in those rock bottom moments and I think a lot of it is such an opportunity for expansion and growth and creating self-awareness within you, especially when it comes to external things, that decisions that maybe you make in your life that you don't want to make, like aside from the things that we can't control, make in your life that you don't want to make. Like aside from the things that we can't control, I really like also want to talk about, like what we can control. Right when we are in those rock bottom moments, right when you choose to be in a toxic relationship with someone, when you choose to hate yourself and bully yourself into, um, thinking you're a loser or thinking you're ugly, like all of these things. Like when you're in those moments, you have the opportunity to say like enough is enough.

Speaker 1: 20:11

I will no longer allow people to treat me in this way, I will no longer treat myself in this way, and it's just an opportunity for you to start seeing, like, where are some of these dysfunctional behaviors that I'm exhibiting and how can I transform these right, if I notice that I continue to get in bad relationships and I never want to be in this position again down, bad divorce, feeling sad about myself that I allowed this person this close into my life to do this to me.

Speaker 1: 20:41

How can I change like how can I make real change to know that I'll never have to experience this again?

Speaker 1: 20:48

And I'm so grateful to say that I know I will never be in another situation and allow someone to treat me how I was treated in that relationship and I wouldn't. Maybe if I didn't experience that, I wouldn't have the same mindset and then I would have just been repeating patterns time and time again, allowing people to you know, disrespect me or not treat me in how I actually want to be. And it reminds me of just like values too, like what values are important and how can I live up to my values in my life and really build a life that's going to make me feel good about myself, that is going to make me feel proud to stand in front of people and my family. And, yeah, I think that there's just so much opportunity for growth in those moments and an opportunity to have like, a new life ahead of you, like you get to carve out a new life, a new perspective and experience new things that are going to put you on a path to go to the place that you really want to go.

Speaker 2: 21:51

I love that and I also want to touch on if you are in a rock bottom moment right now, if you are in a moment where moment right now, if you are in a moment where something devastating has happened to you. Whatever it is, it could be self-induced, it could be not self-induced, it could be a tragedy, it could be whatever. Whatever happened to you and you are like I am struggling right now and I cannot see a way out of this. I want to just talk about some of the things that people can do while they're in those moments, and I think that one of the most powerful things that you can do when you're at a rock bottom moment is actually allow yourself to feel what you're feeling, because we receive so much pressure in the world, so much pressure from ourselves, to just shove it down. We got to go back to work, we got to pick up and just keep going and we don't have any right to feel, and we got to be a wife and a mom and a partner and a friend and a daughter and whatever. So we got to just like get to the healing and like we'll deal with that later.

Speaker 2: 22:57

No, you don't have to live like that Just because we've been conditioned that you're not allowed to express your feelings or the way that you are experiencing your emotions in this moment. You don't have to continue to go down that same road that you have gone down in the past. So allow yourself to feel what you're feeling, because, in the resistance of feeling what we're feeling, it prolongs the healing. So when you actually let yourself okay, yeah, I'm getting a divorce right now and I'm devastated about this. I'm sick right now. Someone's sick in my life. This is really terrible and I don't know if I can accept this Just feel that, sit in that. Allow those feelings to be accepted within you, because you don't realize what it's even like to be in that place. Right, because we think, no, this is just going to be horrible forever. But you've never really given yourself permission to feel your feelings.

Speaker 1: 24:02

Yes, so valid. Oh, so I'm so happy you mentioned that. I would love to have someone on the podcast to talk about how trauma is stored in the body, right, because if people just feel that pain, you feel it in your stomach. You're like, like you know, literally like crunching your abs, pain, emotions get stuck right. So if we're able to feel into that cry, release, pound a pillow, like really just be able to like feel that pain, it's going to allow us to move through it quicker, and I think so many people, rather than feeling it, choose a way to escape through alcohol, through smoking, through, uh, whatever party porn partying yeah, validation media like yeah yeah, which, yeah, I get, I get it.

Speaker 1: 24:52

That's, that's a quick dopamine release, those things and that's the easier route. But sometimes it's like, yeah, you can make so much progress when you just sit and say like, whoa, I'm so sad right now and I want to cry my eyes out for the next two hours because this situation sucks and it hurts For me also. I love that sit with the emotion, feel the emotion. For me, it's also that moment of being self-reflective and control like for me I remember sitting on my living room floor, dropping to my knees, crying, filled with so much anxiety because I hated the job that I was in. I was literally like God help me.

Speaker 1: 25:52

I have no clue what to do. I cannot live this life anymore. I'm getting sick because I have so much anxiety. At that moment I was like I can't do this anymore and I need to figure out how I'm going to get out of this. I need to figure out why I'm feeling this way and I think it really is such an important thing to reflect and get clear on, like why am I feeling this way, what caused me to get to this moment in my life and how am I going to get out? I need a path out, like what are the steps? How can I get support and create a path for myself, because people do get stuck in that Like it's so easy to get stuck in that.

Speaker 1: 26:33

So, like I think, being self-reflective and how you got there in the first place and then finding support support to get out, whether that be a coach talking to a friend, calling your family members going to see a therapist, right Like there are so many different resources out there to help you get out of a place that you're feeling stuck. So finding support is critical when you're in a rock bottom moment critical.

Speaker 2: 27:02

When you're in a rock bottom moment, support is super critical, and what's also coming to me right now is just the power of somatic release, of whatever type that you like I mean. What's coming to my mind is thinking about how many breathwork ceremonies I've been in over the last few years of people who you know will share at the end that they just lost a family member. They this is the anniversary of losing their husband. This is x, y and z. They're going through this super, really challenging moment in their life and this experience has allowed them to express emotions that they have been storing in their bodies and minds for months, years, however long. So definitely look. If you don't know what somatic healing is, look into it. Trauma being stored in the body, what Hannah was saying like this is a way to actually release that, so that you can cry, you can scream, you can have rage in a healthy way, you can move your body and get rid of stuck emotions and energy and things that have just been holding you down.

Speaker 1: 28:14

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:15

And be able to cleanse from those experiences.

Speaker 1: 28:22

Yeah, yeah, the body holds so much. Yesterday I was in a yoga class. It was a hip-focused yoga class and I was feeling so emotional. People say we store a lot of emotions and trauma in our hips and I was feeling like I wanted to cry. I'm like it felt so good to stretch, but I was feeling so emotional, like, oh, I'm feeling so much release just from moving my body. So, yeah, don't underestimate the power of movement somatics to help you release stuck emotions.

Speaker 2: 28:58

Thank you so much for listening and hanging out with us. If you got value from this episode. If you know someone that needs to hear this, maybe they are at a place where they need some extra reminders and motivation that wherever they are in life right now, they can prevail, they can persevere, and that they are resilient and complete and whole. Share this with someone who needs to hear that and if that's you, maybe you need to re-listen to this again and we give you the permission to do so. We love you. Check us out on social media if you're not following us yet and if you are at the end of this episode and thinking you know what? I do need to take matters into my own hands. I do need to get out of my own way because I have been contributing to my own rock bottom moments. Go check out our workbook that we were talking about at the beginning of the episode. I think it would be very helpful for you.

Speaker 1: 30:05

Everything is in the show notes and we'll see you next time. Bye.