Normalizing the Struggle

Are you on the struggle bus, my friend? If so, you are not alone – even if it super duper feels like it a lot of the time. And, as much as it sucks, the struggle is just a normal part of being human. What there is to do is persist and remember to connect when you can.

This episode isn’t here to cheer you up or drown you in my usual ebullient positivity. Instead, I’m just offering empathy, witnessing, and some virtual companionship in times when shit just feels really hard (and maybe a bit hopeless). We’re just in a winter right now, and what there is to do is hunker down and await the return of spring.

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Resources, References, and Links

Note: book recommendations include affiliate links. If you buy a copy, I’ll get a tiny commission, and that would be super cool.

Toxic Positivity by Whitney Goodman (is the book), and then the definition is: avoiding, suppressing, or rejecting negative emotions in favor of an unrealistic optimism. 

Spiritual bypassing: the use of spiritual practices and beliefs to avoid dealing with difficult emotions and unresolved issues.

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May.

Settling vs. Acceptance episode. 

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski. This is about 20% about identifying and dealing with burnout, and then 80% about how patriarchal society contributes to burnout for women in particular. (It’s super good.)

Transcript

Note: this transcript was generated by AI. Please forgive any malapropisms and misspellings. It’s the robot’s fault! (And I super don’t have the energy to edit this right now. 🤷‍♀️)

(00:37.922)
Hello, my darling. This episode is for anyone who is on the struggle bus. Whether that’s anxiety, depression, grief, overwhelm, burnout, chronic pain, navigating medical shit, any number of the struggle buses that are a part of being humans in the human experience.

If you are on one of those struggle buses or on one of the buses that feels like the wheels have fucking come off, then this episode is for you. And it’s for me too, because I’m on a struggle bus right now. And while normally I consider these short episodes, these solo episodes to be pep talks, that’s not what I’m here for today.

I’m not here to slap positivity or my normal peppy happy cheery we can do this attitude on the struggle. Because the struggle is real sometimes and I’m a big proponent of not indulging in toxic positivity. This is a podcast that’s all about claiming our joy and to me joy also entails sorrow – that we don’t get to live in joy and we don’t get to live in positivity and we don’t get to live in happy all the time.

The idea that that’s where we get to exist at all times is crazy making. And what I mean when I’m talking about toxic positivity, it’s also called spiritual bypassing. When we don’t acknowledge the like shitty state of being that we are in and try to slap a happy face on it or an Instagram inspirational quote on it, or a suck it up buttercup, or, well, at least this, that, and the other thing on our pain.

It doesn’t work, and it minimizes our experience, and that just keeps us low level, stuck and miserable, and sometimes not even able to see it. But if you’re still listening, then you know

Cate Blouke (02:55.798)
what it’s like to be on a struggle bus and maybe you’re on it in this moment and if you’re in it this moment, I just want you to feel witnessed in this episode, to feel seen, to feel heard, even though this is a one-way conversation. I hear you, I hear your pain. I really do. It’s a really vulnerable place to be and it’s a really uncomfortable place to be. It’s a really hard place to be and…

we don’t always have people in our lives who know how to hold that space for us. And so I just want you to imagine that I am holding that space for you because the struggle is hard. Depression, anxiety, overwhelm, stress, burnout, all of it’s really hard. And what I have been learning in this, what Katherine May would call winter, this winter

of my life that I am in, in terms of it being actual January in the Pacific Northwest and seasonal effect of depression is a thing for me. And also just a wintery season where things feel hard, where I have kind of had to hibernate a bit and had to rest and had to downshift my expectations of myself. What I have been learning

is that that’s the thing to do. That when we are in the struggle, when we are on the struggle bus, when the struggle is loud and in our face, and there’s no escaping it, what there is to do is to slow the fuck down because doing more shit is not actually the answer. My lived experience, what I have witnessed in friends, in…

Sponsees in clients is this tendency to want to do things at our discomfort. Because we don’t like them being uncomfortable. It makes sense, right? And when we’re in the struggle, it’s super fucking uncomfortable. And the information overload, hyper-paced existence that we are living in provides so many ways to distract ourselves from our discomfort.

Cate Blouke (05:16.364)
provide so many pressures and ideas that what there is to do is something, that there’s something out there that’s going to fix how I feel right now. And to be really honoring and clear about mental illness, yes, antidepressants are real, they are helpful, medications save lives, but self-medicating, the topic of many a 12-step recovery meeting…

often isn’t the solution to the struggle. It’s the solution that we reach for, those of us who are addicts and alcoholics, or even just like normal-ass humans. It makes sense that we reach for things to change the way that we feel. And if you have a problem with drinking, then that tends to make things worse. And if you don’t, maybe it makes things better for the moment, but it doesn’t actually make the struggle go away. What makes the struggle go away?

is time and processing and empathy and space and just a whole lot of shit that you can’t rush. But what doesn’t work is minimizing our experience. I’ve been reading Toxic Positivity by Whitney Goodman and one of the things she points out kind of really early on is the way that well-meaning people in our lives and even this is something we can do to ourselves is to say well at least this, that and the other thing.

Right? I’m having a hard time right now. But at least I don’t live in a war zone. Or at least I have a roof over my head. Or at least I have food on my table. And there’s a time and place for that. Sometimes that’s helpful, but oftentimes it shuts us down. And that’s what toxic positivity is. In 12 Step Recovery, we talk a lot about acceptance.

I’ve had an episode on the difference between settling and acceptance. And I believe that accepting that I am on the struggle bus, I know I’ve said that like 8,000 times, but just accepting that like, yep, this is the struggle bus. I am on it. And as of right now, there is not a way for me to easily exit. I have to wait until I get to my stop and the shitty thing.

Cate Blouke (07:42.186)
about the struggle bus is that oftentimes we have no idea how long it is before we’re gonna reach our stop and can get off it. But what I do know is that when I stop fighting it, when I stop throwing distractions or busyness or more moreness at the struggle, then it has time to move through my system.

And while it’s not comfortable and while I might just be sad and not have a lot of energy for reaching out to people like I normally do, it’s less painful than trying to spiritually bypass or positive my way out of what’s true for me. I recently finished reading Catherine May’s Wintering, which is a really lovely book that I recommend to anyone who’s on the struggle bus.

Because it honors the fact that we all have seasons in our lives, you know, and they don’t usually correspond with the yearly annual seasons in the world, but sometimes we’re in spring energy, sometimes we’re in summer, sometimes we’re in fall, and sometimes we’re in winter. Catastrophes happen, hard shit happens, and we end up in a personal winter.

And what I like about that book and what I want to just offer here is that winters are a normal part of the human experience. That when we try to avoid winter, when we try to just be in spring or summer all the time, we burn ourselves out. We stress ourselves out. We’re trying to hold on to something that isn’t real and we’re fighting with reality. And that what there is to do when we are in winter is to hibernate.

It’s to get cozy, it’s to be gentle with ourselves, it’s to not overdo it, it’s to look at the reality of our situation and say, well, this is what is, and ask ourselves, like, what do I actually need right now, today, in this moment? What do I have the energy for? What do I not have the energy for? What boundaries do I need to create for myself?

Cate Blouke (09:59.082)
so that I can honor the reality that I’m in. For me right now, that’s looked like a lot of slowing down, a lot of not making plans, a lot of literally cozying up by the fire with a book, and trusting that spring will come back. I think when we’re in the struggle, it’s really hard. When we’re in winter, it’s really hard to trust that spring is going to return. And…

The bitch of it is that in our personal winters, we don’t know when that’s going to happen. And we can’t know. Like whatever winter you’re in, I don’t know how long it’s gonna take to end. All I know is that when winter comes, fighting it only makes it worse. And that I do believe that in the cosmic scheme of our lives,

spring will always return unless we die. That we live in cycles, like it or not, but that as we age and as we grow and as we evolve, those cycles, instead of just feeling like a merry-go-round, it’s really more like an upward spiral. That this winter is different from the last winter, is different from the winter before that.

that each winter period we go through, we do learn something, we do change, and we are differently equipped for the next winter. But again, unlike the actual seasons, or maybe kind of like the actual seasons, each winter’s gonna be a little bit different. The winter in Portland this year has been mild, but gray and shitty, and the lack of sunshine has worn me down in my soul, as it does.

But last year we had a giant ice storm and we’re all stuck in our houses for a week and that was a different kind of winter. And my neurodivergent entrepreneur burnout phase that I’ve hit this winter is different. And I will say that I’ve gotten a lot better about recognizing and acknowledging when I am in a winter period, when I am in a struggle period.

Cate Blouke (12:21.442)
And I’ve been talking about this in the last few episodes, but spaciousness and slowing the fuck down really are proving to be the answer for me and my clients and the people in my life that when things are hard, doing more is rarely the solution. And certainly for me, it’s not the solution. And then I’ve been getting a lot.

of relief and clarity and healing from slowing the fuck down. So to you, my love, my fellow traveler on the struggle greyhound, to wherever it is we’re going, I just want you to know that you’re not alone and that there are people in your life who love you, even if they don’t know how to hold space for you right now.

I think that’s what can really exacerbate the struggle is when we feel like the people in our lives don’t know how to show up for us. Don’t know how to say, I’m so sorry. That sounds so hard. What do you need? How can I support you right now? And oftentimes we also don’t know how to respond to that. And that’s okay too. So rather than an invitation at the end of this episode, I want to make a request. And my request is that you take a minute.

and get quiet and take a few breaths and just ask yourself what you need today, what the wounded, tired, hurting, exhausted part of you needs today, and to really listen and to honor whatever you hear. Because I know that my experience often is that I tap in and I listen and I don’t really like the answer.

because maybe what I need is a nutritious meal and not a pizza. Maybe what I need is to cancel the plans even though I thought that going and doing the thing might make me feel better. Sometimes what I actually need isn’t really what I want. But that’s how I get myself into these situations in the first place is when I spend too much time listening to the part of me that

Cate Blouke (14:45.576)
is very vocal about what it wants and not listening to the part that tells me what it actually needs. So my request is that you ask yourself what you need, that you listen, and that you take really good care of yourself today, whatever that looks like, and that you really try to absorb that you aren’t alone. That if you are listening to this, I care, whether you are someone who I

directly know or not, I care. I care that you’re on the struggle bus and I know what it’s like to be on it. And so my hope is that there’s somebody in your life that you can reach out to directly and just be honest about what’s going on. Because usually isolation makes the struggle bus a lot worse. Sometimes what there is to do is to hunker down and hibernate and not reach out to the world, but

Even for those of us who are pretty introverted, being completely alone isn’t the answer. So I’m sorry that you’re struggling. I’m sorry that things are hard right now. And I just want you to know that you’re not alone. That as much as this experience fucking sucks and is bullshit and is hard and you don’t deserve it.

It’s also normal. It’s also part of the crazy ride that we call living. And I hope you won’t be hard on yourself about it. It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re not broken or defective or deficient. You’re just having a human time and it’s hard. So I’m sending you a really big energetic hug and just reminding you that the struggle is real.

Struggle is normal. We all have different struggles and that, you know, for me, social media doesn’t make me feel better when I’m on the struggle bus. So, I have been really not hanging out on Facebook or Instagram very much lately. And so my, here’s the additional bonus request is don’t do that to yourself either.

Cate Blouke (17:11.754)
you’ll get a lot more spiritual and emotional nutrition from reaching out directly to someone in your life who cares. Meaningful connection is one of the most healing things we can do for ourselves. And if you have the like brain energy for a book, book recommendations are my favorite thing. I really cannot recommend highly enough

a book called Burnout, the secret to unlocking the stress cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski. It really offers so much love and support and lightheartedness around what is a totally normal human struggle that so many of us are going through. It was really transformative for me a few years ago the first time I read it and I picked it up again lately and was like, okay, I see you.

I see you struggle, I see you burn out. So my loving and tender requests are that you reach out to somebody who cares about you. And even if they can’t really offer you a solution, we all just sometimes need to hear that somebody cares. And so if you haven’t heard it already today, you are loved, you matter, and your struggle is real.

Cate Blouke (18:40.984)
P.S. Given that this whole episode was about burnout and struggle and doing fewer things, I just wanted to note that the only reason that this episode is happening at all is because I gave myself permission to not do an episode this week if I didn’t have it in me. And then I did, but I didn’t have it in me to get it out on the normal posting schedule. And I decided that like, that’s fucking okay.

Because again, I want to model the things that I talk about on this podcast and perfectionism fucks us up. Nobody’s going to hate me or die because I didn’t get things out on exactly the timeline that I normally do. Similarly, I didn’t get an episode out last week, but I did get my annual book review post up on the website. So if you’re not already subscribed.

check out settlingisbullshit.com and subscribe to get email updates, because every once in a while I’m just not gonna have it in me to get an episode up, but I might get something written out, because those unfold over time and are a different kind of lift than getting an episode recorded and edited and uploaded to all of the platforms that are required to get this up and running. So.

You know, it’s all about gentleness and about checking in with what we actually have the capacity for. And I felt inspired enough to talk about where I’m at and talk about the struggle. And I’m glad I’m getting this out imperfectly, not on time, for whoever needs to hear it.

Cate Blouke (20:27.106)
Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please help me grow the podcast by subscribing, leaving a review, and sharing it with anyone you think would benefit from hearing it too. Your support means the world to me. If you’d like to get updates about new episodes, posts, and offerings, please visit settlingisbullshit.com to subscribe to my newsletter. You can also find information there about working with me one-on-one to build your most amazing life. Until next time, remember that I believe in you, and that you are fucking awesome.