How Do You Change Your Luck When Things Go South?

The answer will surprise you...

One wrong piece and it all falls down…feel like I might be being a bit dramatic.

In the past week, I have been asking my friends: am I in an unlucky spiral? The evidence, you ask? Let me tell you! I had strep throat and Covid at the same time. I found a (completely undeserved) “baby eviction” notice on my front door, which, given my money + chaotic home trauma, freaked me out. A debt collector for something I had never even heard of and which took place in 2020 started harassing me. And then, of course, I was burglarized two times in a seven-day period—once at my front door, once in my car.

Up until the car break-in, I had been feeling like an adult who could handle the unexpected in stride! Sure, the “baby eviction” triggered me, but WHATEVER. I had done enough trauma work that my panic lasted less than 2 hours (HUGE progress if you know how scared of money loss I am). Strep and Covid sucked, but whatever, I was lucky to be otherwise healthy—I didn’t even care that I had to quarantine for ten days. The debt collection was very unpleasant (and Jesus are those people mean), but I knew it would be figured out. Even the (highly valuable) package didn’t cause me any panic—even if the (dick-ish) company didn’t help me pay for it (which they were threatening), I would survive. The car burglary was the Jenga piece too many that toppled my painstakingly built stability.

I began to think: Am I in some unlucky spiral? How long will this last? Have I done something wrong? How can I change it? On pondering these questions, here’s what I’ve found out:

1. Bad Luck is Not a Thing

I got a text from my good friend Elise Loehnen (who has an excellent podcast which I have been on, episode here!) who, in reaction to the burglaries, wrote, “don’t try to figure this out.” She wrote some other very beautiful things that I also took to heart, but I instantly realized: this isn’t on me and maybe there is nothing to figure out or analyze. Sometimes life is senseless (maybe you always knew this, but I am a “make sense of it” machine). So, I revisited the question: " How can I change my luck?” And realized…I can’t. It’s okay. Instead of being a spiral of doom, it was just one moment. It all depended on what time horizon I was looking at. Yeah, in seven days, maybe you could call it a bout of bad luck. But in the past two months? In the past two years? I would call the past 30 years a bout of extremely good luck.

2. But Maybe…Just Maybe…There’s Something Here I Can Soak Up

I often write about opening the aperture of your life—that is, seeing the good and the bad simultaneously. Not to silo one, just to recognize that our worst moments are not ENTIRELY bad, and our best moments are not ENTIRELY perfect. To be clear, I’m not talking about toxic positivity, nor am I talking about any silver lining, in fact, the only silver lining in this situation would be if these thieves would give me my shit back, please and thank you. But…when I think about my feeling of “bad luck,” I recognize that in that week, I was also feeling overwhelmed and like I had too much going on in my life. Seen in this light, perhaps this was a nudge from the universe (i.e., me, cus remember—we’re all made of stardust!) to simplify my life a little. Maybe I didn’t need endless packages delivered to me in the name of convenience. This is a nudge I’ve received approximately one billion times.

3. We are all super vulnerable. We know it and we don’t know it.

I think what upset me the most about the burglaries was that I was forced to see how defenseless I was in both situations. When I looked inside my car and saw my owner’s manual, photos, and knick-knacks strewn about, I saw how little control I had and how easily my little bubble of a life could be violated. I don’t often have sit in those feelings but when I deal with unexpected loss (“bad luck”) I can’t help but notice what has been so obvious but so unacknowledged.

What do you think about bad luck? Does it exist? Have you ever found yourself in a bad luck spiral? How did you get out? Does good luck exist? I think there is such a thing as good timing, synchronicity, and being prepared for opportunities so that when a special moment comes along, you’re ready for it. And maybe I even believe in good luck because we’ve all had some moments where the universe conspires for our good. But bad luck? I’m over it. You hear me, universe? SO over it.

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Your questions, comments, triumphs, heartaches, adventures, and insights. All of it is welcome here. (Submissions lightly edited for brevity.)

A reader who sees how unhealthy a “work family” can be…

The “Mission to Mars” chapter in Glow helped me make sense of a toxic former job the way nothing else has in the 5 years since I quit. This job was very messed up. I had an abusive childhood, so finding a “family” through work was everything to me (I even had a nice work dad and a strict work dad, too!). I was in this very fun, loving “family” environment, but also getting the shit manipulated out of me. And when I finally found the strength to quit, my starry-eyed self believed they would still be in my life…because we were a “family”! But, spoiler alert, they didn’t engage with me any more because all we had been was coworkers. It was devastating. And now I can see that wasn’t healthy. Your chapter was so affirming, and I just appreciated the hell out of it.

-Meghan W.

A reader who held my hand…I love to journal and have been practicing your techniques. I try to do morning or evening pages (evening sometimes helps me decrease anxiety at the end of the day). I also want to say the way you wrote about depression in Glow was so perfect; it felt as though you were talking right to me, offering me your hand.

-Katie L.

From last week’s newsletter: what are you listening to, reading, and watching, any good recommendations to share? What’s your brain candy—I could always use more!

I’m reading “The Story of Stuff” by Annie Leonard. I can feel it changing my neural pathways. It shines a light on how we consume, the interconnectedness of it all, and now I’m making even more changes to my habits.

-Mel