Why Rock Bottom Is the Best Place You’ll Ever Be

August 2025 feels like the month of rock bottoms. Financially. Emotionally. In relationships. In family. In body. In spirit. You name it. Maybe you’re there too.

Here’s the thing about rock bottom: it’s not something you have to fight your way out of. It’s not about “fixing yourself” or “staying positive.” It’s about letting yourself fully collapse into it.

Because the greater the fall, the greater the bounce.

And you don’t even have to believe you’ll bounce. Gravity does the work for you.

Surrender Looks Messy

Let me tell you what surrender looks like in real life.

• It looks like crying so hard you give yourself a headache.

• It looks like eating an entire bag of Cheetos at 2 AM and then licking the dust off your fingers.

• It looks like calling people you know you shouldn’t call, just to feel something.

• It looks like quitting, ghosting, or burning bridges that were already on fire anyway.

• It looks like pouring a drink and watching your life unravel from the couch.

Surrender isn’t pretty. But it works.

Why You Don’t Have to “Have Faith”

Here’s the good news: you don’t have to have faith in yourself, the universe, or God to survive rock bottom.

Your only job is to stop resisting it.

Think of a butterfly in the chrysalis: if you pry it open too soon, it dies. The butterfly doesn’t need to believe in wings. It just breaks down into goo and lets the process work.

Think of a phoenix: ashes first, flames later.

Think of yourself: you’ve already hit the ground. The earth is holding you. Gravity is steady. Rock bottom is a floor. And floors are for standing on, eventually.

Evidence That People Rise

History is full of people who lost everything and came back harder.

• J.K. Rowling was a broke single mom, depressed, living on welfare. Then she wrote Harry Potter.

• Robert Downey Jr. was in prison for drug charges. Then he became Iron Man.

• Oprah was fired, broke, abused, and told she didn’t belong on TV. Then she became Oprah.

Even “ordinary” people find success, leave toxic relationships, crawl out of debt, find love again at 50, heal their bodies after decades of neglect. The process is almost automatic.

The bounce is built into the fall.

So What Do You Do at Rock Bottom?

Do nothing. Seriously.

• Cry.

• Sleep.

• Eat the junk.

• Smoke the cigarette.

• Lie on the floor staring at the ceiling.

Let the wave crash. Let it drown you. Because when the tide goes out, you’ll find you can stand.

And one day — not today, maybe not tomorrow — you’ll catch yourself laughing. Or making plans. Or just craving something other than numbness. That’s the bounce. It comes on its own.

Again, you won’t need faith to make this work. Don’t believe my words. That’s the whole beauty of rock bottom: it requires absolutely zero “manifesting” on your part.

Final Word

If you’re at rock bottom right now, congratulations. You’re on the launchpad.

The deeper you fall apart, the more room there is for the rebuild. And the rebuild always comes naturally.

For now, your only assignment is this: let yourself break.

Because the phoenix doesn’t rise by holding it together. It rises by burning first.