A Pitch-Black Day - Or why feeling like Shit is Part of Life.

As the founder of almali.org, a company dedicated to bringing joy and happiness to people and organizations. I always insist on the importance of discipline and hard work, self cultivation as the basis for happiness but I talk fairly little (or at least not in the headlines) about how much life and business sometimes just suck, how it can all get way too much, how loneliness is an inevitable part of life and how sometimes the world just seems all together bleak.

My dad used to say; “Kathrin, you are having a pitch-black day” (Kathrin, du hast einen schwarzen Tag). Well, actually, I sometimes have pitch-black weeks. And I know so many tools, the exercising routines, the good food, the meditation and gratefulness practices, the “only in loneliness will you find real strength” etc pp. Bla Bla Bla. When you are at that really bloody dark point though, most of this just won’t do the trick. And worst of all, we now live in a world of self-help mania where (watch for it, terrible generalization coming up) every other self declared guru tells you to “just” let go, “simply” trust in life, “good luck, bad luck, who knows” (ssshhhh... I do say those things myself). And I so much agree that in many situations this can be of help but in many others it will actually make you feel even WORSE (as if this was even possible!)!

The thing is; suffering is part of life. At least on this planet. It seems like we have been born to overcome this immense paradox of being born in the first place only to die - not bloody well knowing when! How are you meant not to struggle, not to suffer, to just take things in your stride, soldier on and wait for the day when you ascend… to where? Who knows! But please, it all lies within you, in your believing in something greater than yourself, in trusting life, all the strength, all the ability just inside of you.

So, whilst on many days of my life I manage to be positive enough, not just for myself but for many people who have told me that I am super positive, like light… on many other days, I feel like they are pitch-black and the only thing that makes me soldier on isn’t inside me. I apparently am not yet ready for enlightenment. I then long for a kind look, a smile, a hug from another person.

Everything in nature has a meaning and a reason, so if there is many of us on this earth, it is precisely so we might look out, so we may find solace, in the kind eyes of another living being that knows those black days and understands what even the smallest of gestures could mean for them, too in one of these moments.

So screw depending on oneself. I very happily allow myself to depend on others. And after all, even on the bleakest of days the thing I am most grateful for is all of you. Wishing you all a very happy bleak or bright day and much love and connection in whichever way it may come to you,

Kat