It’s grey.

Suffocating.

Lonely.

No matter how hard you try to see clearly, it’s hazy at best, a dimness from above that borders on complete darkness.

If you look to the right side, there’s just a wall.  You can’t go anywhere.  You try to look to your left, thinking there might be a possibility if you change what you’ve been doing and nope; the wall is there too.

All you can do is sit where you are, in the greyness that is.  Maybe you can move slightly forward or slightly back, but the only way to go — no matter how beaten up and bruised you may feel – is up.  Following the hazy dimness, not matter how doubtful it may seem. But your energy is shot.  You’re tired of trying.  Numbness rules.

No, I don’t know what you’re exactly going through, but I’ve been there before.  I call it “The Hole”.

And when you’re “in it” you feel like you can’t get out.  You feel like there’s no possibility at all – and certainly no one could possibly understand.  The Hole is always deep, and the walls aren’t easy to climb, and no words of wisdom will help.  You wish someone could help. You pray.  You ask the Universe to guide you, you ask God to save you.  You live in there for days, weeks maybe even months, trying desperately to muster up an ounce of hope to start the climb out once more.

But you’re right.  I can’t help you.  If I could, you know I would.  All I can tell you is — my journey has seen its share of The Hole.  I fall into it all the time.  I think it’s part of what life’s all about.  Ebbs and flows.  Not that we have to always be in The Hole per se, but that the learning moment is in understanding to maneuver around them to begin with, or to figure out more quickly how to get out of them once we step into them all over again.

And it doesn’t matter how you get IN The Hole either.  Yes, it could be someone else’s fault, yes, it could be your own.  The point is, how do you get out of it now?  How do you avoid it in the future?  Or my latest triumph: learning NOT to dig yourself in deeper?

One of my favorite quotes is by Winston Churchill.  You know this – I’ve shared it with you many times.  But every time I fall into The Hole, I recite this to myself no matter how deep I fall:

“When you’re going through hell, keep going.” 

I need you to keep going.