Lessons learned from a rock bottom
I’m interrupting normal programing of romantic relationship talk for self relationship talk instead. I recently went through a rock bottom and learned a valuable life lesson as well as learning more about myself through the process. I wanted to share in effort to help another who may be experiencing their own rock bottom and needs assurance that there is light in even the darkest situation.
When I got back to NYC in October 2018, after 8 months of travel and 4 months of staying in LA, I had manifested everything on my original manifestation list except my own apartment in NYC. At the time, I felt at peace about calling in my own place and knew it would come. I wasn’t looking or searching or hustling for it. I was doing further unblocking work and getting back into the swing of my life. In December, two of my close friends were starting the process of moving out of a really incredible one bedroom apartment. They had known the landlords for years and had each been a nanny for the family at different times. The landlords lived above them and they got cheaper rent due to the fact they were also babysitting. It was a sweet deal! When we were chatting about them moving out, the idea of me taking over the space came up. My first reaction was I couldn’t afford the rent as they were raising it to $1600— still affordable for the space, but out of my price range. My second reaction was a question. Would the landlords let me babysit for the extra $600 I couldn’t easily afford on my own? Yes, they answered back and offered me the place. We signed a year lease in early January this year and I could not believe my luck. I had been calling in a studio and ended up with a one bedroom, that was huge AND had a washer/dryer?! Get out of town! Life was too sweet. Thank you Universe. I was over the moon that this last manifestation and huge dream of mine was finally coming true. I had worked hard and I was ready! Cut to the very end of February, two weeks before I’m supposed to move into my dream place, and the land lords let me know the pipes were broken throughout the whole house and due to the damage, they needed to break my lease. I wasn’t going to be able to move in. UH….what?
Upon hearing the news I no longer had my shiny new apartment, I was devastated. The rug was being pulled out from under me and I had no idea what to do next. I asked my current place if I could stay, but they said they had already rented my room. Not only was I going to not move out on my own, I was about to be homeless to boot! I’ve done enough work to know that this was all happening for me and not to me. I knew rejection is protection and that the new apartment wasn’t right for me. Even knowing all of this, I was still heart broken. My dream had been so close and then it was gone in a puff of smoke. So, what was I supposed to do?
Well, I immediately started doing work around this rock bottom and for this I used Lacy’s Rock Bottom workshop. The workshop allowed me to turn what could be viewed as a negative thing, into an empowering situation. I felt so grateful to have the support of the workshop to work through as I went through the emotions that came up for me during this time. Mostly, what came up for me was feeling not good enough to move out on my own. The situation I was going to move into was a creative way to move out on my own— I didn’t have to venture out into NYC real estate and compete. I was essentially asking for charity from these people, through the valuable service of babysitting, and through that I was communicating I couldn’t stand on my own two feet to make this move. Energetically, I was playing very small. And as the Universe loves to do, it knocked me back onto my authentic path. Still, after the experience of getting so close and then not getting my apartment, I felt like there was no way I could move out on my own. I started looking at studios in Greenpoint and was met with needing to make 50x the rent + 5K to move in + have stellar credit + have a guarantor if I didn’t make 50x the rent or have stellar credit. It all felt very overwhelming and impossible.
Throughout the workshop, Lacy encourages taking baby steps to work towards what you’re trying to call in and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what mine were. All I could see was that I didn’t have enough and I wasn’t enough to accomplish this dream and call in my own apartment. And then one night after doing a DI from the workshop, I got a ping to calculate what 50x my rent would be for the studios I had looked at and when I did the number shocked me. It didn’t shock me because it was so high, it shocked me because it was DOABLE! Granted, it’s not what I’m making now, but I immediately thought I COULD MAKE THAT! This clarity snowballed into me also setting the number I want my savings to hit so a move doesn’t drain me of every penny and finally small steps to take to achieve these goals!
The clarity of breaking down the numbers of what I needed to be making and saving brought me out of the world of victim mentality (I can’t) , overwhelm (i’ll never be able to do this) and ambiguity (who knows what 50x rent is, it’s too high for me) and into the world of empowerment and clarity. It may seem like a small shift, but what this rock bottom showed me is I have a tendency to bury my head in the sand and say, “I can’t” when I hit my edge and am being asked to rise to the level of the thing I’m calling into my life. The head burying means all I see is darkness and I won’t seek out answers or even ask questions. However, picking my head up and leaning into the uncomfortable things being asked of me— in this situation, leveling up my income— I can find a lot of clarity. In the clarity I see the element I’ve been so scared of isn’t actually that scary and I can totally do the damn thing! Through the clarity, steps get laid out and then suddenly I’m well on my way down a brighter path.
As i prepare myself financially to afford moving out on my own, I found a bridge apartment with roommates. Does a small part of me want to feel sorry for myself because I had to move and it’s not into on my own place? Yes. However, I know what it takes to reach that goal now and having the clarity means that’s one less block in my way. I would never be able to call in a new place if I wasn’t taking the cues the Universe was giving me to level up my income to afford the new place I want. We co-create with the Universe and that means doing our part of the co-creating! I feel empowered about this new phase and this last rock bottom. It gave me precious insight into a default pattern that no longer serves me (head burying) and a new pattern I will be moving into instead (clarity and facing uncomfortable situations) that I wouldn’t have gotten to without the rug being pulled out from under me. There’s work ahead, but to quote one of my favorite books, The Prophet, “Work is love made visible".
What rock bottoms are you facing? If you need support as you navigate one, I look forward to connecting over a session.
All apartment photos borrowed from @the_file