Oh, hello my friend,
For your viewing pleasure, you can either watch, listen, or read today’s edition!
Today, I want to tell you about the time I almost completely lost it over a hunk of steel that would not make me an espresso if its life depended on it. This “time” I’m referring to was actually a few days ago, the day after I got back from an incredible, stress-free, JOY-filled trip to Paris with The Boyfriend™️.
You see, in a fit of pre-trip optimism, I had ordered myself a real, big girl, espresso machine, so that when I landed, I wouldn’t have to lose thirty minutes of my morning trekking to my local coffee shop for a coffee I could make at home. And I was in SUCH a good mental place setting it up, happy from Paris, relieved thinking of the time and money I would no longer be pouring into my caffeine habit.
And then…
It would not work.
I’m not talking about a little troubleshooting that an instructional YouTube video could fix. It was demanding something from me that I did not understand. A steam button! A milk button! Some kind of two-step sequence, like the machine itself was quizzing me on whether I deserved espresso. I read the manual twice, unplugged it, and plugged it back in…NOTHING. And if you’ve read Lilies, you know I am FAMOUSLY GOOD AT MAKING COFFEE MACHINES WORK!
Somewhere around the fourth attempt, still in my kitchen, one literal day after the most romantic trip of my life, I felt my whole body go hot. My jaw clenched so hard I could have cracked a tooth. I was fully on the verge of tears over a KITCHEN APPLIANCE. And underneath the fury was a thought so old and so familiar I could recite it in my sleep:
I cannot get my needs met. Even the small ones. Something is wrong with me and the universe. At large…
I was in a BAD mood, generalizing and catastrophizing about how this espresso machine actually said something larger about my life. And then I started criticizing myself. Did other people get this bent out of shape about something so petty?
But! Thank GOD, I had the perfect person to reframe my overwhelm and walk me through exactly what was going on in my brain. That person was Melissa Urban on my Substack show, A Little Thing That Helps.
Melissa gently reminded me that…
Nobody Has Their Sh*t Together
Melissa has eight bestselling books and has built an empire out of The Whole30 and has an excellent Substack which I am actual reader of! If anyone has earned the right to say they have their life together, it’s her. So I asked her the question I want to ask every wildly successful person: was there ever a time your life looked perfect from the outside while you were falling apart on the inside?
So Melissa told me a story. The year was 2015, and The Whole30 was everywhere. I’m talking Good Morning America, Dr. Oz (before he was a quack), and a ten-city tour. The View wanted some B-roll of the power couple, so they asked her and her husband (who was also her co-author and business partner) to walk down a New York City street holding hands for the camera.
What the camera didn’t know was that they were in the middle of a divorce. Not a fight. Not a separation but a FULL BLOWN divorce. She was text-fighting the man at night, then sharing the stage and business the next morning.
On TV, they looked like they had it extremely together and living this picture-perfect life, but as Melissa so wisely told me, “Nobody has their shit together…I don't care if you're talking about this billion-dollar company or your favorite celebrity or that person on Instagram whose life just looks perfect."
I asked Melissa to share the tips that got her out of the moments our lives become a “swirling tornado of doom” (her words, not mine), and here are three of the secrets she shared with me:
There Are Three Ways Out of the Tornado
1. Ask: Is this true?
This is the one I skipped in the kitchen because I was already too far gone, and it’s the most important one. My thought was, I cannot get my needs met. But was that true? Standing there, phone in hand, with a million people who love me a text away, and a coffee shop blocks from my door? No. It was not true. It was an old thought, borrowed from a younger me that had MUCH less agency. As Melissa put it, “always ask yourself, ‘Is this true? Can you absolutely know this is true?’”
2. Say the worst case out loud until it shrinks
Unnamed, a fear is a looming black cloud. Named, it’s usually just annoying. Melissa’s worst case in 2015 was: “He (her ex) takes the business from you. You can’t do Whole30 anymore. You have no stream of income whatsoever. And you have no money.”
She said it out loud and immediately could answer that scary thought with: “I still have my son. I have a family that’s super supportive of me. I have friends who are really supportive. I have a college degree.” As for my worst case, it was not getting to have coffee at home. Said out loud…it’s just funny.
3. Know which plates are glass and which are plastic
During her divorce, Melissa kept exactly three plates spinning: her son, the book, her health. Everything else she let hit the floor on purpose, because plastic bounces. As she told me, “You need to know which of the plates are glass and which of the plates are plastic.” That morning, the espresso machine was a plastic plate. The right move would be to let it drop, not stand there obsessing.
I am so grateful to Melissa for her wisdom and leading by example - she was so real with me, and made me feel less alone in the world. I hope you feel the same way too!
Testify:
Do you find yourself mistaking glass plates for plastic? Are you able to reality check yourself in the swirling tornado of doom? Let me know in the comments. I read and reply to every single one - it’s the best place for us to have a conversation, so let’s get it going!
