It Won’t Always Be Like This | How to Survive the “Stuck in the Suck” Season | #139
How do you stay hopeful when life feels overwhelming? In this Daily Dose, resilience coach Dawn Super shares the mindset that helped her survive decades of chronic illness, stress, and difficult seasons: reminding yourself that it won’t always be like this. Learn how self-encouragement and small mindset shifts can help you hold your own hand through life’s hardest moments.
Watch the Video Here or Read the Script below
It won't always be like this. Hang in there.
This video is for anyone stuck in the suck of chronic illness, extended stress or major life transition.
This is the Daily Dose of Dawn at Dawn, videos designed to expand your thinking.
So, why do we want to think about this? Because life is going to life and the more tools you have to hold your own hand when the tsunami comes, the better you fare.
Welcome back to my Happy Matters Collective where we believe that thinking about the hard stuff makes it easier to deal with.
So, how did this come into my awareness?
Well, I've spent a lot of time stuck in the suck, like a lifetime of it. And many different varieties of suck, too.
Sometimes I think my life is designed to serve as a warning to others.
That's what I love the most about being a resilience coach — taking all the baloney that I went through and all the different ways that I learned how to deal with it and helping other people go through the same stuff.
If the thought of working with me excites you, reach out. You won't be disappointed.
"It won't always be like this" has become a mantra for me.
I've had many experiences where I've gone through extended flares with health issues, extended stressful relationships with people I couldn't remove myself from for extended periods of time.
Having to live inside of that while not losing your mind and not beating yourself up and not giving up requires you holding your own hand through the experience.
And me telling myself "it won't always be like this" is a helper thing. It helps me through it.
Because when you're four decades sleep deprived and you're stuck in the suck, it can be easy to feel like it will always be this way.
I went to a tiny little school and there were only 14 kids in my class and none of them liked me.
And I was stuck in there from first grade through seventh grade with these kids who didn't like me.
Then I went on to a different school and a different state and a different experience and I made friends.
But you could not have told eight-year-old me, "Hey, hang in there for six more years and then everything will be better."
That doesn't help.
But "it won't always be like this… hang in there" gives more hope.
It's very important with all the talk of toxic positivity and spiritual bypassing that you never let yourself give up your hope.
I've had a lot of people misunderstand Happy Matters to be only happy matters or happy matters no matter what. And that's not what it is.
The whole thing with Happy Matters — my little magnet here — if you sign up for my Daily Dose, which is this video that you're watching, get it delivered to you weekdays email or text, you get one of these free in the mail.
I make them myself. They're really cute.
So here's the thing.
If happiness is a choice, why don't we choose it?
It's because we forget that we can and we feel guilty if we do when things are hard.
We feel like we don't have the right to be happy if things suck.
But we do.
And remembering that Happy Matters — it matters.
It makes a difference.
It helps you hold your hand through the hard stuff.
Finding it along with the hard stuff is how you dig your way out of a hole.
When one of my kids had a hard time in middle school, I reassured him that things would be different in high school. It would bring new opportunities to him.
And when one of them struggled in high school, I reassured him that one day high school is just going to be a memory.
Unless it was intentional, they're probably not going to see the people that they went to school with ever again.
We live in a really big place just outside LA and unless you're intentionally trying to connect with someone, you're not going to see them.
I never really had anyone in my corner cheering me on through decades of extended sleep deprivation.
I've had to be my own cheerleader.
And all of these little tricks that I teach people came about because I didn't have anyone to lean on like that.
I had to teach myself how to lean on me.
It's why I published How to Be on Your Own Side.
During illnesses, breakups, tough economic times, unexpected stressful situations, or even just trying to deal with my everyday symptoms from my nine diagnosed disorders, I gently remind myself:
It won't always be exactly like it is right this second.
I have some discoloration here on my arm. You can't really see it — it looks kind of freckly.
In 2018–2019 I had an aggressive contact dermatitis that made it look like my skin was deep fried.
It was really bad.
It was so bad that Google turned off ads on the blog post with the photos for shocking content.
And it went on like this for five months.
I would take the steroids, the prednisone, and it would go back. Then I would run out of the prednisone and it would come back again.
I really did not know if I was going to spend the rest of my life disfigured like that.
Holding my own hand through the experience, being on my own side, reassuring myself that no matter what happens I'm going to find my way through it.
I have so far.
And I will to come.
Having that helps you fare better through no matter what you're going through.
So if things are hard right now, remember:
It won't always be like this.
Hang in there.
If you’re going through a hard season and it feels like it might never end, my book How to Be on Your Own Side will help you learn how to encourage yourself through it.
In just 14 days, you’ll feel steadier, more hopeful, and better able to handle whatever life throws at you.
Because sometimes the person who needs to be in your corner the most… is you.
Start there.
