There is no resolution.
Unlikely wisdom in a tough time, from The White Lotus (no spoilers).
Join me for a small group retreat at True Nature in Carbondale, Colorado, from September 25 to 28. Learn more.
Sobriety is hard. The Luckiest Club makes it easier. With 51 weekly meetings, 24/7 app support, a dogma-free community, and programs that help, you’ll get real support to stay sober and build a better life. Join now and get your first week of meetings free.
No spoilers for White Lotus here, I promise.
I’ve really been going through it lately. (I’m sure a lot of us are; I don’t know many people who aren’t.) I’m angry. I’ve got way too much cortisol running through my body. I’m not sleeping well. My appetite is messed up. My brain is scattered. I’ve got a hard book deadline that’s freaking me out, but it’s more that the writing process is just inherently full of doubt; the questions Is this even working? What am I doing? Who paid me to write a book? are there, always, and some days I’m better at tuning them out than others.
But the biggest weight on me right now is a situation that just will. not. end. It’s been 2+ years of emotional and financial drain—consuming, confusing, and infuriating at every turn, especially over the past year. I’ve thrown every tool I have at it—sometimes helpfully, sometimes just banging my head against a wall. It’s revealed the best of me (resourcefulness, intuition, relationship-building) and the worst: impatience, judgment, and a sometimes relentless inability to let things be, especially when the path forward is clear to me.
Two years ago, I thought it would be over in six months. Last year at this time, I figured it would absolutely be done by the fall. Today it’s much closer to resolution, but we’re still not there. My practice for the last couple of months has been nonstop Serenity Prayer: accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, wisdom to know the difference.
The last part is tougher than it seems in this case, and accepting what I can’t change is not my strong suit, but my God, y’all, am I ever fucking trying.
This is one of those situations that’s like a dam. So long as it’s closed or still in place, many aspects of my life remain paused/blocked. Once it opens, there’s movement again. The river can flow. The past can wash away, and the future can begin, or so it feels to me.
To say I’ve been looking forward to this particular dam opening again…well, I want it with everything I have. I don’t understand why it hasn’t happened yet. I know there must be a reason, a deeper reason, and sometimes I trust that wisdom and can rest in it, but most of the time, I struggle to. Most of the time I am banging my fists, and I hate admitting that.
I know my back is against the wall when I’m listening to a lot of Pema Chödrön again, and not just casually listening to lull me to sleep, but like, listening.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about something I heard Pema Chödrön say when I first discovered her, maybe twenty years ago: “Spirituality is all kind of a game until the shit hits the fan,” she says, with that signature laugh of hers. I was newly married then, in the midst of my first real adult shit-hitting-the-fan moment, and I understood exactly what she meant. I’d always been drawn to wisdom texts and spiritual ideas, even from a young age—but up until that point, I’d been protected, privileged, and just young and dissociated enough to have never faced anything truly soul-crushing.
It’s easy to sound spiritually enlightened when you haven’t faced real loss, betrayal, or hardship. Easy to self-righteously post, preach, or write about surrender and “trusting the universe”—to talk about high-fiving yourself like it’s an actual solution to anything real—when you’re standing safely outside the arena.
Inside the arena, it’s messy. It’s bloodshed, undoing, and disillusionment. It’s unfiltered and un-Instagrammable. You’re not reciting mantras in a mirror—you’re praying into the void, bargaining, breaking, trying to remember who the hell you even are or what you believe. The three-step solution gig is up. There are no shortcuts, no black-and-white answers. In fact, you start to understand that truth only exists as a paradox—and that’s not something you can truly grasp from a podcast, a book, or a theory. You have to live it.
I’ve been through a few of these seasons now. That time in my marriage was one. Sobriety was absolutely one. And this—which is tied to the end of my relationship last year—is another.
Monday night, after an extra long day of pushing against the tide, I sat down to watch the White Lotus finale.
Side note: If you asked me what I thought of this season before this episode, I wasn’t a big fan. Yes, all the seasons have had intentionally slow, dramatic pacing, but this one seemed torturous. Aside from Chelsea and Gaitok, I didn’t like any of the characters (of course Parker Posey made me laugh, but her too!). After the finale, though? Loved it. Not my favorite, but I loved it.
It opens with a monk from the monastery saying this to his students:
Sometimes, we wake with anxiety.
An edgy energy.
What will happen today?
What is in store for me?
So many questions.
We want resolution. Solid earth under our feet.
So we take life into our own hands.
We take action, yeah?
Our solutions are temporary.
They are quick fix.
They create more anxiety. More suffering.
There is no resolution to life’s questions.
It is easier to be patient once we finally accept: there is no resolution.
I’m kind of a terrible TV watcher. Jumpy and half-distracted most of the time. But as soon as he started speaking, something in me stilled. His words hit with perfect pitch; I could feel each one vibrate through my body, like I was being re-tuned after a long stretch of dissonance. I leaned forward, and when it was done, I rewound and watched it three more times. Then, I watched it again and wrote it down.
It should be terrible news: There is no resolution.
But it didn’t feel terrible at all; it felt comforting at a time when nothing feels comforting. Because the most painful part of going through a time like this is that it pulls me out of my life. I can’t see what’s right in front of me because I’m so consumed by the dam still being closed or what it’ll be like when it opens again. I’m stuck believing that once there is resolution, I will be able to live again, breathe again, enjoy my life again.
As I was watching the scene, I thought, Of course.
And I heard Pema’s words again. Things come together and they fall apart. Then they come together and fall apart again.
The full quote is:
Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.
Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart
Maybe you need this right now, too.
I love you. Keep going.
Laura
In Case You Missed It
Emotional Perfectionism - I didn’t even know it was a thing. And, hi, I’m back.
Seeing What I Find - Reflections on heartbreak, one year later.
Maybe your friends are the love of your life - Rethinking romantic love.
Explore The Archives
You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life and Push Off from Here: 9 Essential Truths to Get You Through Sobriety (and Everything Else).
Laura. Wow. I want to print this and put it in my journal. This is church right here. Thank you for sharing. Love this so much.
And Saxon was reading When Things Fall Apart in the last episode! Hang in there. ❤️