A health scare.
A natural disaster.
Plans that fall apart without warning.
Watching people suffer and being unable to fix it.
These moments can feel unsettling, even terrifying. Yet they also hold the potential for something unexpected: a deeper trust in yourself.
Last week, it was smoke. The air quality became unhealthy, when the smoke from the Canadian Wildfires reached our area.
It triggered me.
After dealing with toxic mold in our home and recently discovering mold in parts of our HVAC system, clean air has become something I don’t take for granted. I’d been finding refuge outside in our yard, and suddenly that was gone.
My mind went straight to the question:
Will it ever be safe to breathe again?
That question wasn’t rooted in the present moment.
It embodied my fears from the past and worry about the future.
In the present moment, I was uncomfortable—but I was okay.
That realization changed everything.
In the present moment, I could hold both my fear and my faith in myself.
We were raised to “buck up” or “look on the bright side,” denying how we actually felt. Or to run every worst-case scenario, as if enough worry could buy us control.
What if you didn’t have to sort things into good or bad? What if things could be genuinely shitty and you still believed they’d get better?
Both are true.
Life doesn’t split cleanly into working or not working. It’s messier than that.
Imagine a parent who, instead of telling you to be the bigger person, sat with your upset and helped you find your way through it.
You can be that for yourself now.
The next time you’re triggered by something outside your control, notice the story your mind starts telling.
Am I ever going to get through this? What’s wrong with me?
Then pause.
Ask yourself…
Would I speak to someone I love the way I’m speaking to myself?
Probably not.
So offer yourself the same compassion you would offer a dear friend.
Stay with yourself instead of abandoning yourself.
Because every time you stay present with your experience, without minimizing it or becoming consumed by it, you strengthen your trust in yourself.
And when you know you can be with yourself through life’s hardest moments, you discover something no circumstance can take away:
You are capable of supporting yourself through anything.
That is the real gift hidden inside the in-between.
So much love,
