This past week, I found myself knee-deep in some heavy conversations with people I mentor—conversations that left my heart a little heavier and my mind a little clearer. I had four soul-wrenching talks with individuals navigating the messy, painful challenges that life likes to throw our way. And let me tell you, these weren’t the kind of chats that end with a high-five and a “You got this!” No, these were deep dives into the soup of life’s toughest moments.
Now, if you’d met me as a younger mentor, you’d have seen a different side. Back then, I was the guy who cranked up the energy, delivered a rousing pep talk, and sent folks marching right back onto the battlefield of life. It was all about the hustle, the fight, the relentless pursuit of victory. “Onward and upward!” I’d say, with all the enthusiasm of a cheerleader at the championship game.
But as I’ve journeyed through my own labyrinth of self-discovery—a path I lay bare in my book BlindSighted—I’ve come to realize that life isn’t always about charging forward. Sometimes, you’ve got to pause, float for a bit, and just swim in the soup.
Swimming in the soup means embracing the uncomfortable. It’s about acknowledging the down emotions, those murky, messy feelings that we’re often too quick to shove aside. We think we have to power through them and get to the other side as fast as possible. But here’s the truth: we can’t rush our healing. And more often than not, those tough emotions are better teachers than the brief moments we spend basking in the winner’s circle.
Healing isn’t linear, and it sure as heck isn’t instant. It’s a process—one that requires us to sit with our pain, recognize its roots, and maybe even have a conversation with it. By doing so, we can begin to transform that pain into something that stretches our souls and helps us grow in ways we never imagined.
Richard Rohr said it best: “If you do not transform your pain, you will most assuredly transmit it.” And I, for one, don’t want to transmit my pain to others. Transformation doesn’t happen by sprinting through life’s toughest moments. It happens when we’re willing to linger in the soup, even when it hurts or feels almost unbearable.
So, if you find yourself swimming in the soup right now, don’t be in such a rush to climb out. Sit with it. Feel it. Learn from it. And allow your body to release it just by letting the pain be and leave. There’s wisdom in those waters, and sometimes, the most profound growth happens not when we’re standing on the podium, but when we’re learning to navigate the depths.
All My Best,
Rich
