Dear Woo Woo Girl:

My life sucks!
My boss is a micromanager, I’m stressed out, I can’t find a partner, my last boyfriend cheated on me, I’m not sure if I have real friends, my kid won’t come out of his room and I’m turning into an alcoholic! HELP!

What better way to start my first blog off with a thoroughly depressing question? Next to how do I meet the person of my dreams, I think this is the question we ask the most. Why does my life suck? How many times have you listened to your friend complain about life then watched as they sunk into the doldrums after a few beers or if they are the sophisticated type – wine with a little weed, and proceed to slip into a momentarily fuzzy heaven! And truth be told? You feel the same way.

Let’s look at it shall we?

Their life sucks.
Your life sucks.
Well…
Why shouldn’t it?
Are we special?

It is the rare and special individual who doesn’t experience bouts of lack, when nothing goes their way, and every relationship feels like a masochistic dungeon. Only on Facebook and Instagram is our life perfect.

The brutal reality is life does, can and will, derail. There is the odd person who glides through life seemingly untouched from life’s ups and down. From the outside, they seem fantastic! We all know someone like that, and I for one hate them! They never seem to fall into deep depths of despair or manic highs because they have their shite together, right? Nope. They are just one of the rare ones who understand the flow of life – namely what goes up HAS to come down and vice versus.

There are good years, and there are bad years. If you are lucky they are not too many bad years back to back. I don’t know anyone who gets a free ticket to bypass shit. In my twenties I developed chronic fatique syndrome. There weren’t enough hours in the day to sleep, and I was fired. I laid on the couch for over a year, unable to walk further than the kitchen without needing a nap. It took ten years, and 22 doctors later before I felt almost normal. I lost my twenties. Did my life suck? Yup. Most of my childhood sucked too. But there were periods of amazing times too, like when 7 of us jumped into a Volkswagon Beetle and drove to Montreal for Expo.

Much later, for ten straight years, my life sucked BIG TIME. Again! My father died, mom became paranoid, my son turned into an addict, I got two bouts of cancer and lost the sight of my right eye. It wasn’t easy. But l played a numbers game in my head. If 10 years were horrific and thirty years were good, then were things really so terrible? Of course they were! Damn Right!

But I do know if you ride it out long enough, no matter how difficult, it WILL pass.

It’s not the end of the world. It just feels like it.
Stuck in this phase, sucks. It truly does. If it was just the boss who was a royal pain in the backside there would be easy steps to take. But when there is a pile up, we are looking at multiple issues, emotions, questions. Pain, emptiness, tears, lack of self- esteem hurt, torment, self- destructive behavior… a whole lot of lack!

BUT what it really is, is the end or the beginning of a new period of time. The concepts of chunks of life I think are only really understood in your forties and fifties, when you start to build up enough chunks to look back on. It’s only then when you understand and appreciate what that time was significant for. You come out scarred and maybe jaded – in my case – with two new breasts and double vision but I learned soo many lessons.

You see, the universe is trying to have a conversation with you. It sounds “woo woo” and it is. Are we here to learn things? I think so. Shitty multiple events back to back are lessons. It is up to you to decipher what it means. Just before I had chronic fatigue syndrome I had a life that was way out of control. Working 70 hour weeks and partying hard lowered my immune system making me susceptible to whatever viruses were out there. My lesson was I needed to change the way I lived and nursed myself back to health. It was a message about self-care.

If you are not a believer in cosmic lessons, then lets rephrase it. Periods of shite are growth spurts forcing you through one phase to another; not so subtle and sometime tragic teachings from different areas of your life saying it might be time to turn left rather than right. If you hate your job and your boss is a douche bag, then you are either in the wrong career, or you simply need to change jobs. That boyfriend or girlfriend won’t commit? It might be time to say Hasta la vista! Love you more than him/her. Tragedies and illness are lessons too; in faith, self- discovery, self- care and the impermanence of life. It is an ebb and flow like the seasons. Just some are crueler than others.

But how do you find your way out of a horrific life pile up? It’s one thing to know the universe is talking to you – at least somebody is – but what do you do?

Know that things take time. Depending on what the biggest sore spot is in your life like grief, then time heals. Lots of it. The lesson is this too does pass. If it is more practical considerations like your career is stalled, you can’t connect with the right partner, or your roommate drinks too much, know that those take less time.
There ARE tangible steps.
Look around. Ask questions:

1. What do I want my life to look like in five years?
2. What can I do TODAY to improve the quality of my day to day existence?
3. Can I reframe my situation in a way that convinces me that it’s not permanently horrible? Not looking on the bright side, but looking at things differently. Reframing will hopefully prevent you from taking drastic measures like drinking yourself into oblivion and ending up in bed with your girlfriend’s husband. It also might help you take yourself more seriously and not fall into the victim trap.
 
But wait. Tangible questions are great for tangible answers. But a life that sucks means your soul has a big hole in it too – particularly if you are a sensitive type. Don’t ignore your spirit.

How?

Find your flow. Did you know happy people, are people who find something to immerse themselves fully in? A creative endeavor that takes the thinking brain into a feeling of tranquility, and utilizes other senses. Sew, sail, play music, knit, paint, write, hike. Whatever brings that feeling of flow immerse yourself into.

And here come another Woo Woo piece of advice. Silence cradles the wounded soul. Meditate. Whatever and wherever represents your happy place, go there. I meditate daily. It grounds me, and starts my day off on the right foot. Silence holds space for fears, disappointments, and tears. More than once I bawled my eyes out when I was supposed to be focusing on opening my third eye. A daily spiritual ritual that is filled with gratitude, changes your attitude for a little while. The more you practice, the more you will see what I mean. Whatever practice resonates with you and doesn’t hurt your back but feeds your soul, invest in it.
LAST but definitely not LEAST
Volunteer! During this covid19 outbreak my neighbors and I made sandwiches for a homeless shelter. In a period of three weeks a group of 8 grew to over 100. It gave purpose to social distancing, and a focus that for a time wasn’t filled with anxiety, depression or fear. Giving back is a purely selfish endeavor because you feel productive, feel good about doing good, get a chance to meet new people, and moves you out of your comfort zone and for a time from asking, why does my life suck.

Follow these tips! Because rest assured, it will come around again. Guaranteed!

The Woo Woo Girl
P.S.
There is an incredibly irritating song titled “My Life Sucks” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjz3A3-qBwk
by Scotty Sire