Boom

Many times in life there are trigger events that occur to move you down the road by opening your eyes or removing a block that was in the way. I mentioned something like this in a previous blog about dominoes falling—you should give it a read if you haven’t—but anyway. Sometimes you can tell exactly what it is, or that it’s coming. Sometimes you are even the one to trigger it by agreeing to something or doing something, and the effects ripple out. You see it a mile away, that one event that you know if/when it happens, it will change everything. Other times it hits you out of nowhere like a Mack truck on a blind curve. Regardless of how it comes about, it’s always a shock to the system. It’s a knock-down moment that can define how you move forward.

In my life, I have had a number of these moments that have put me on my ass. Breaking moments that pushed me to the brink of giving up—and sometimes I have. The will to move forward and the push to keep going all but drained from me. Often, moving forward was just a push to keep up an appearance with the outside world. Always having to put on the mask and pretend. Not letting anyone know the hurt and pain, because why should you? It’s your problem—why put it on others? Like I mentioned before, you pick up the pieces and start laying them back down. Sometimes this works and is what you need to do. Other times, it just restarts the cycle.

What I can tell you, though, is that if you pay attention, you start to see little signs here and there after the trigger event—things that show you it happened for a reason and shouldn’t be ignored. Seeing little signs like more sightings of certain animals, repeated numbers, random songs you haven’t heard in a while playing on the radio, etc.—things that on a normal day you might not even give a second thought to. Once you start to pay attention, you begin to realize maybe these aren’t just random events. Maybe they are little hints or signs from somewhere saying, “Hey, yeah, we know we just dropped a nuke on your life, but it’s for a reason, and we’re here to help you move forward if you’re willing to see it.” So that’s what it comes down to: do you sit with what happened, or do you find a way to move and ignore it?

As I mentioned earlier, younger me was the latter of the two. Suck it up, move on, and just pick up the pieces. Well, as I’ve walked the path I’m on, I’ve realized that sometimes the pieces don’t need to be picked up. Sometimes they need to be left where they are—and they’re there for a reason. No point in worrying about them; they’re supposed to drop, fall, get lost, break. The path ahead has no room for the extra bits. This is a big part of the journey that I didn’t fully understand until I dove deeper into it. As you realize things, sit with things, and heal from the past, parts of you and your life fall away. Layers get pulled back. “Ogres are like onions—they have layers,” to quote one of my favorite movies growing up. And this doesn’t just apply to ogres. Everyone and everything has layers, has depth. Those layers need to fall away and be peeled back in order to get to the core of who you are and what you stand for.

So what do you do when the proverbial nuke drops on your life? Well, that’s for you to decide. Do you try to instantly rebuild things the way they were, or do you realize the land is no longer stable, pack up the essentials, and move on to more fertile ground? Those are the questions we all have to sit with and face as we move along. So next time it feels like your life is suddenly falling apart, stop and sit. It won’t be easy, but if you just stop, sit, and run through what has happened, you’ll often find the connections—and have a better idea of why it happened and where you go from there.