“I Don’t Need Another Life Lesson”: When Life Be Lifein’ and Throws Curveballs

Dr. Carmela Maxell: Welcome back to Rooted in Rising. I'm Dr. Carmela Maxell. Before we get into today's episode, do me a favor. If you've been listening for a while and you haven't followed or subscribed yet, go ahead and do that now. And if this episode hits home for you, leave a comment, send it to somebody who has also been personally victimized by adulthood, or share it with a friend who's been saying, I can't take one more thing. For the last three business days. It helps more people find the show. And honestly, I like knowing what resonates with you. Now, this episode is for all of us around the world, no matter the circumstances. Because I think we have all experienced this in some form or fashion. Have you ever had one of those weeks where a million things hit you all at once? And you definitely weren't ready? No, seriously. Think about a week where everything seemingly went awry, when you were already struggling to catch your breath and left wondering how to unsubscribe to this chapter of adulthood. So let's walk through it. You finally catch up on sleep and that show your friends have been pestering you to watch on Netflix for a month on a Sunday evening. You wake up refreshed. You go and take a shower, and as the warm, or in my case, hellfire temperature of the water hits your skin, you internally set your intentions for the week as you gently breathe in the aroma of whatever scented body wash you purchased that was on sale because they discontinued your favorite scent. I'm still grieving. You get dressed and you're all polished and ready to get to work and get the kids off to school. And then suddenly you can Curveball. The Keurig doesn't work. Or in my case, you forgot to restock the medium roast K cups, so now you're having to use the decaf ones you swore you would return. Then you open the fridge and realize that you're completely out of creamer. Damn it. Suddenly your daughter reminds you that you have to bring snacks for the entire class today, which you swore you would remember. As you look at the big reminder post-it that you placed on the fridge two weeks ago and somehow still completely ignored. To Instacart we go. You drop the kids off and then mosey on down I5 and get stuck in traffic while you hear the pinging of your emails trickle in one by one, and the internal pressure starts to build to get to the office as you turn your music up and try to have a little bit of loud, aggressive. Peace in the Monday traffic. It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. You rehearse this mantra about a billion times in your head and remind yourself that it's Monday morning and everyone is just racing slowly to get to work. And then bam, work hits, and chaos ensues. The demands hit. The sweat beads start to form their dripping congo line. Not because you planned any of this. Mostly because you already had a schedule of things that you knew were Already going to take up all of your energy. But somehow life thought, ⁓ she has room for more madness. Let's throw marbles on the floor and watch her navigate the new rules for floor hockey. I found myself becoming one of those people that reverted to the philosophy that everything in life has a meaning. And for the most part, I still believe that's true. Not that every little action or reaction was going to mean anything immediately, or that every situation was meant to have some enormous impact on my existence. But I believed that every situation was a noodle in the soup of life that was meant to enrich me, teach me something useful, or prep me for something greater later on. The soap dispenser breaking. Perhaps I needed to cleanse my plate to prevent from falling apart. Running out of toner at the office. Maybe a blank slate is what I needed to achieve self actualization? The internet router resetting itself fifty eleven times. No, that's just IT. My left windshield wiper suddenly making that sad little sound letting me know that it was way past his expiry. Time to get rid of those geriatric grapes from the fridge. Yep, I thought it all meant something. But one week in particular, everything that could happen happened. And I was left to nothing but my philosophy and my stale imposter decaf coffee that was doing the Lord's work to power me through. I could get through Monday, which was already the spark for the train wreck dumpster fire. Too many meetings, too many emails, too many phone calls. Too little planning for Tuesday because Monday has overdrawn from my mental bank and my sanity is in collections. And when Tuesday rolls around, you secretly but not so secretly and unapologetically protest your disdain. By the way you currently respond to your emails. Yet and still, I think there's a part of us that tries to maintain some semblance of it's too early to tell mentality. The caffeinated, ambitious, but still struggling kind of positivity early on in the week to power us through whatever it is that life throws our way. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself I'm doing. However, There seems to be this consistent turning point that many of us seem to always hit midweek that contributes to a level of mental instability and confronts the ineffable desire to remain goal oriented for the remainder of the time. We start the week with the passion for productivity and also with healthy intentions and a blind faith that perhaps this could be the week that brings us the much needed validation that what we are doing means something and matters. And somewhere along the way, we lose that sense of hope that we made a blood pact with because we did not plan for the curveballs. And the spiral spirals in the only way that spirals can spiral. Downward. Now, if you can relate to this, I want you to take a second and really think about how often these weeks have come your way over the course of your lifetime. Because if you're anything like me, you really haven't tracked the data. You've tracked the feelings and emotions tied to the circumstances that were probably outliers and not the constant. Perhaps you can look back and rediscover that some of what you experienced may have had lessons tied to them. Maybe there was an actual reason behind you leaving your coffee cup on the hood of your car, driving off, and then realizing it too late when it splatters all over the ground. Just like your perceived last ounce of hope. Maybe it just meant that life as we know it is all over. I'm kidding. Or maybe the life lesson there was to actually take time to slow down and not rush yourself in an effort to reach the pinnacle of productivity before having breakfast. Perhaps the lack of energy that you felt having five back to back teams calls means that it's time for you to start looking for another job. Or it means that it's time to reevaluate if your attendance at every single one of these meetings is necessary. Challenges aren't a punishment for being human. Sometimes challenges reveal resilience we didn't know we had. Sometimes they require endurance. Sometimes they change the direction of our lives. And sometimes they're simply balls colliding at the perfectly inopportune time when you're already trying to juggle three back to back meetings, practicing mindfulness. And searching on Amazon for the same-day delivery option for that birthday gift you forgot to purchase for the party in 10 minutes. Oops. We don't have to assign every curveball a curriculum. It can seem as if multiple things are happening to you at one time on any given day, and your energy expenditures far exceed your true ability to keep up with all of the demands. And you think to yourself, Is the universe recruiting me as a soldier for God's army? I thought I was exempt from the draft this year. Respectfully universe, I have enough character development. Please develop someone else. Because I think that's the part we don't talk about enough. We have become obsessed with extracting meaning from everything that hurts. Every disappointment needs to teach us something. Every heartbreak needs to make us stronger. Every failure needs to redirect us. Every loss needs to reveal our purpose. Every difficult season needs to become the chapter where we discovered who we really are. And listen, sometimes that's true. Some of the hardest things I've lived through have absolutely changed me. They've clarified things. They've taught me things. They forced me to grow in ways I probably wouldn't have chosen voluntarily. But sometimes shit just sucks. That's it. That's the lesson. This fucking sucks. You don't have to turn every painful experience into a TED talk. You don't have to find gratitude in the middle of something that's hurting you. You don't have to look at the universe while your life is actively on fire and say, Okay, but what are you trying to teach me? Maybe the universe isn't trying to teach you anything. Maybe your Keurig broke because your Keureg is an asshole. Maybe you forgot the snacks because you have 17,000 things occupying the same three inches of brain. Maybe traffic happened because apparently everybody in Washington decided to get on i5 at the exact same fucking time. Washingtonians, can you relate? And maybe the internet went down because actually no, that's definitely IT. I'm standing by that one. But somewhere along the way, I think we confused making meaning from our experiences with requiring every experience to have meaning. Those aren't the same thing. We are so desperate to make suffering meaningful that we sometimes turn every inconvenience, disruption, and painful lesson into an assignment. And I want to give credit to those in our lives that have helped us to decipher when things were. And are bad from those incidents that were one offs. There definitely needs to be balance. But I also think when we're left to our own devices, we sometimes slip back into those patterns of associating every little thing with some hidden life changing event. The truth is, life is not always trying to teach you something. You don't need to consult the tarot cards, your horoscope. Three TikTok therapists, your group chat, and the one friend who somehow believes Mercury has been in retrograde since 2017 just to understand why everything went wrong on Tuesday. Sometimes there's simply a chain of things that happen. One thing breaks, another thing gets forgotten. Someone sends an email that absolutely could have waited until Thursday. Traffic backs up. Your kids suddenly remember something they needed yesterday. Your calendar looks like Tetris. And somehow you're standing in the middle of it all thinking, okay, what exactly am I supposed to learn here? Maybe nothing. Maybe this isn't a lesson. Maybe it's just Tuesday. And I think there's actually something incredibly freeing about allowing that possibility. Because when we believe everything difficult must contain some profound message, we give ourselves another job. Now, not only do we have to survive the thing, we have to understand the thing, analyze the thing, grow from the thing, find gratitude for the thing, write three journal entries about the thing, become a better person because of the thing. Meanwhile, I'm just trying to remember where I put my keys. That is enough. And I want to be clear, meaning can absolutely come from difficult experiences. Some of the hardest moments of my life have changed the trajectory of who I am. Some have taught me boundaries. Some have taught me courage. Some have shown me exactly what I never want to experience again. And some lessons didn't reveal themselves until years later. But meaning that eventually emerges from an experience is different from demanding meaning while you're still bleeding from it. We can make meaning without forcing meaning. We can grow without romanticizing what hurt us. We can become stronger without pretending that we are grateful for every circumstance that required strength. And sometimes resilience doesn't look like overcoming anything. Sometimes looks like saying this week was absolutely ridiculous. I am exhausted by I learned nothing. I would like a refund. That counts too. Maybe that's what I needed to remember this week. Not that I needed another lesson in patience or leadership or boundaries or resilience. Or whatever elective the University of Life has apparently enrolled me in without my consent. Maybe I just needed permission to acknowledge. This is a lot. And I don't have to turn it into anything yet. And this is where I want to give you something practical. Because it's the one thing for me to sit here and tell you you don't have to turn every difficult moment into a life lesson. But that doesn't necessarily help you when you're actively standing in the middle of the mess. So when life starts lifeing a little too aggressively, Here are a few things I want you to try. First, separate the feeling from the interpretation. This one matters. Your frustration can be completely valid. Your exhaustion can be valid. Your anger can be valid. Your disappointment can be valid. Your anxiety about what is happening can be valid. But the interpretation you attach to those feelings may not be accurate. And those are two very different things. You can feel overwhelmed without your life actually falling apart. You can feel rejected without being unlovable. You can feel behind without actually being behind. You can have a terrible week without deciding that you are terrible at life. You can feel like nothing is working without that being objectively true. Sometimes our nervous system files everything under one category emergency. And suddenly one difficult conversation becomes everybody is against me. One mistake becomes I always mess everything up. One unexpected bill becomes I'm never going to get ahead. One hard day at work becomes I'm I chose the wrong career. One person disappointing us becomes nobody ever stays. And listen, the feeling underneath those conclusions may be very real, but feelings are information. They're not always evidence. That doesn't mean ignore them. It means interrogate the story before you build a house inside it. Ask yourself what actually happened? What am I assuming happened? What do I know? What am I predicting? What part of this is fact? And what part of this is my exhausted brain trying to fill in blanks because ambiguity is uncomfortable? That little pause can save you from creating an entire catastrophe out of a difficult afternoon. Second, figure out what actually requires action. Not every curveball deserves a swing. Some things need your attention immediately. And some things can wait until tomorrow. Some things belong to somebody else entirely. And some things are irritating but do not actually require a response. That last category has saved me a lot of energy. Because sometimes we burn ourselves out trying to interact with every single problem simply because it appeared in our field of vision. An email arrives. You do not have to answer it in 30 seconds. Someone is unhappy with a decision. You do not automatically have to reverse it. The dishwasher is making a weird noise. Okay, maybe we need to look at that one. But you get my point. When everything feels urgent, stop and ask, what is actually mine to handle right now? Not eventually. Right now. Sometimes the answer is one thing. Do that one thing. Third, reduce the number of decisions you're making. When you're overloaded, your brain does not need more choices. This is not the moment to reinvent your entire life. Pick dinner. Pick the next task. Pick what can be postponed. Pick who needs to be called. And for Pete's sake, leave the existential crisis for another day. You do not need to decide whether to quit your job, move across the country, cut off your entire family, start a business, change your hair, and join a pottery collective because Tuesday was difficult. Although, depending on the haircut, I support a little controlled chaos. But generally, Reduce the decisions. Make the day smaller. Fourth, stop measuring the entire week by its worst hour. Let me say that again. Stop measuring the entire week by its worst hour. We do this constantly. One thing goes wrong at nine hundred twelve in the morning and suddenly by nine hundred forty seven we have decided that the entire day is ruined. Why? The day is barely clocked in. Give it a chance. A bad morning is not automatically a bad day. And a bad day is not automatically a bad week. And a bad week is not automatically evidence that your entire life is on the wrong track. This is what I mean when I say that your frustration may be valid, but your interpretation may not be. You are allowed to say this moment sucks without upgrading it to everything sucks. Those are not the same statements. Fifth, ask yourself what would actually make this five percent easier. Not perfect. Not fixed. Five percent easier. Would eating help? Would taking ten minutes away from your screen help? Would canceling one non essential thing help? Would asking somebody else to handle pickup help? Would turning your phone over for twenty minutes help? Would admitting that you are overwhelmed instead of pretending you are fine help? Would going to bed early help? We put so much pressure on ourselves to completely solve our emotional state when sometimes what we really need is a small reduction in pressure. Five percent matters. And finally, delay the damn meaning making. You do not have to decide what an experience means while you're still inside of it. This one has been huge for me. Sometimes perspective requires distance. Sometimes the lesson really does show up later. Sometimes you look back six months from now and realized, ⁓ that did teach me something. Or ⁓ that redirected me. Or I should have left that situation way sooner. And sometimes you look back and think Wow, that was just an absolutely awful week. Both are allowed. You are not failing at growth because you cannot find wisdom while you're exhausted. You are not emotionally immature because you're irritated. You are not spiritually deficient because you can't find gratitude in something painful. And you're not doing life wrong because you've not yet figured out what all of this was for. Sometimes the most emotionally honest thing you can say is, I do not know what this means yet. That is a complete sentence. And maybe later something useful will come from it. Maybe not. But either way, You survive the moment without forcing yourself to turn it into something prettier than it was. And I think that matters. So if life has been life in a little too aggressively lately, I want you to remember this again. Your frustration is valid. Your exhaustion is valid. Your disappointment is valid. But before you decide what any of it says about you, Your future, your relationships, your work, or your life. Check the interpretation. Handle what actually requires your attention. Make the day smaller. Reduce the decisions. Ask what would make things 5% easier. And give yourself permission to understand the meaning later. Or never. That's allowed too. Because not every curve ball comes with a curriculum. Some of them just need to be dodged. There will be time for reflection later. There will be time to decide whether something changed you. There will be time to discover where there was a lesson hiding somewhere inside the mess. But today, maybe you just need lunch. Maybe you need to cancel a meeting. Maybe you need to put your phone on do not disturb. Maybe you need to sit somewhere with a ridiculously overpriced beverage and stare into the distance for 20 minutes. Maybe you need to go home, take the hottest shower known to humankind, and get in bed. And maybe none of those things need to represent anything deeper than I am tired. I am human. And today was a lot. Challenges are not punishment for being human. And surviving them does not obligate us to become enlightened by Thursday. So respectfully, universe, I appreciate the investment in my character development. But enrollment is currently closed. Please develop somebody else. I'm Dr. Carmella Maxwell, and this has been Rooted in Rising. Take what you need from this week. Leave behind what you don't. And if there was a lesson, it'll still be there when you have the bandwidth to find it. Until next time, stay rooted in who you are and keep rising into who you're becoming. Take care.