“Head up, heart open. To better days!”
— T.F. Hodge

Struggling to find your motivation? Feeling unsure or uneasy about the next steps?

There are just a few things you need to know right now.

This quick read is for YOU…

Once upon a time there was a woman in her mid-sixties who noticed that she had lived her entire life in the same small town. And although she had spent decades enthusiastically dreaming about traveling and seeing the world, she had never taken a single step to make this dream a reality.

Finally, she woke up on the morning of her 65th birthday and decided that now was the time! She sold all of her possessions except for some essential items she needed, packed these items into a backpack, and began her journey out into the world. The first several days on the road were amazing and filled with awe — with every step forward she felt like she was finally living the life she had dreamed.

But a few short weeks later, the days on the road started taking a toll on her. She felt misplaced and she missed the familiar comforts of her old life. As her feet and legs grew more and more sore with each new step, her mood also took a turn for the worse.

Eventually she stopped walking, took off her backpack, slammed it on the ground, and sat down beside it as tears began streaming down her cheeks. She stared hopelessly down a long winding road that once led to an amazing world, but now seemed to lead only to discomfort and unhappiness. “I have nothing! I have nothing left in my life!” she shouted out loud at the top of her lungs.

Coincidentally, a renowned guru and life adviser from a nearby village was resting quietly behind a pine tree adjacent to where the woman was sitting. When the woman began shouting, the guru heard every word and he felt it was his duty to help her. Without thinking twice, he jumped out from behind the pine tree, grabbed her backpack, and ran into the forest that lined both sides of the road. Stunned and in complete disbelief, the woman started crying even harder than before, to the point of near breathlessness.

“That backpack was all I had,” she cried.” And now it’s gone! Now everything is gone in my life!”

After roughly ten minutes of much-needed tears, the woman gradually collected her emotions, stood up again and began staggering slowly down the road. Meanwhile the guru cut through the forest and secretly placed the backpack in the middle of the road just a short distance ahead of the woman.

When the woman’s teary eyes fell upon the backpack, she almost couldn’t believe what she was seeing — everything she thought she had just lost was once again right in front of her. She couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear. “Oh, thank heavens!” the woman exclaimed. “I am so grateful! Now I definitely have what I need to continue onward…”

Sometimes we need a little wake-up call.

As we journey through our personal and professional lives, there will inevitably be periods of incredible frustration and despair. During those tough times, it will sometimes appear to us that we’ve lost everything, and that nothing and nobody could possibly motivate us to move onward in the direction of our dreams. But just like the woman who stumbled across the guru, we are all holding with us a backpack of support that comes in many forms — it can be a simple DM or text message from someone we respect, inspiring blog posts, insightful books, helpful neighbors, supportive communities, and so much more.

When the going gets tough — when we’re losing our motivation and feeling down and unsure of everything — we need to wake ourselves up and remember…

1. To trust the journey, even when we do not understand it.
2. To accept what is, let go of what was, and have faith in the road ahead.
3. To start exactly where we are, use what we have, and do what we can, one step at a time.
4. To look for the blessings hidden in every struggle we face, and be willing to open our hearts and minds to them.
5. To recognize our backpack of support — our external sources of hope and motivation — before a random guru (or someone with far more crooked intentions) has to steal it from us so that we can finally see what we have always taken for granted.
6. To be present and tap into our own hearts and minds — our internal sources of hope and motivation — which have the power to push us back up on our feet and guide us down the road to our backpack of support, even when it appears to be lost forever.
7. To laugh at the confusion, live consciously in the moment, and appreciate the lessons found at each twist and turn.
8. To not compare our progress with that of others, and accept that we all need our own time to travel our own distance.
9. To see how many of the things we never wanted or expected ultimately turn out to be what we need.
10. To be OK with not ending up exactly where we intended to go, while opening ourselves up to the possibility of eventually arriving precisely in the right place at the right time.

Bottom line:

If you are struggling right now, you’ve got this!

No matter your circumstances, you always have what you need to take the next smallest step.

Or as Epicurus so profoundly said, “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

Be mindful. Be present. Keep going, one day at a time, one small step at a time.

Now it’s your turn…

Please leave a comment below and let us know:

What’s one source of hope, motivation, or gratitude you typically turn to when you need it most?

Anything else to share about this essay?

Angel and I would love to hear from YOU. Your feedback is important to us.

Finally, if you haven’t done so already, be sure to sign-up for our free newsletter to receive new articles like this in your inbox each week.

“If you have ever followed a rainbow to its end, it leads you to the ground on which you are standing.” ~Alan Cohen

There’s nothing more exhilarating than riding in a Jeep through masses of standing water. With each push forward, my friend Angela expertly maneuvered through enormous puddles, sending fountain-like arcs of aquatic glory past my passenger-side window.

This was joy to me.

It was a welcome reprieve considering the past couple of years had unraveled in ways I never saw coming. In fact, this watery wonder, cruising through the quaint streets of the beloved beach island I called home, was a rare outing for me.

I wouldn’t call myself a shut-in exactly, but if you had spotted me out and about in recent months, you might have likened it to a unicorn sighting—rare and a shock to the system. Rare, because leaving my house required something other than pajamas. Shocking, because it meant I had somehow rallied after a morning of ugly crying.

These days, the ugly cries came less frequently, but getting out the door still required careful planning and a healthy dose of positive self-talk. Angela, sensing all I had been through, didn’t attempt to fill the space between us with mindless chatter. She let the air breathe, allowing our hearts to settle into a comforting silence.

And wouldn’t you know it? In that silence, as we rolled forward over the waterlogged road, a rainbow appeared.

It was magnificent. A full curve stretching across the sky, untouched by a single cloud. We both took it in, wordless at first, until Angela finally spoke the thought we were both holding:

“This has to mean brighter days are ahead.”

I nodded, hoping with everything in me that she was right. Not just for our community, which had been pummeled by weeks of relentless storms, but selfishly, for me. I needed this to mean something. The universe wouldn’t place something so breathtaking in my path if life wasn’t about to shift in a meaningful way… right?

At that moment, although I wasn’t ready for it, a tiny doorway of hope cracked open in my heart.

Angela pulled into my driveway, gave me one of those deep, soulful hugs she’s known for, and I stepped onto the sand-packed pavers, feeling something I hadn’t felt in a long time: the possibility of relief.

But relief never came.

The next morning, I woke up expecting transformation. I brushed my teeth, looked in the mirror, and waited for the shift. And then it hit me. Nothing had changed.

Worse yet, everything that had once shattered me remained intact, as if locked in a forgotten pause. My father was gone—forever. And instead of the clarity or closure I had hoped for, I was left with the unsettling reality that some pieces of life can never be fully mended.

By some unknown force of grace, the years, months, and weeks leading up to our last conversations allowed them to be light, even warm. A reminder that the love we shared, though imperfect, continued to move freely in both directions. And still, his sudden departure sent shockwaves through my family, shifting fault lines in ways I couldn’t control. Unable to bear it, like a sea turtle stunned motionless after a sudden freeze warning, I collapsed inward and began my retreat from the external world.

Then, there was my future looming over me, a blank slate waiting to be filled. My identity had been tethered to raising my boys, but soon, my nest would be empty.

I had no roadmap for what came next. I had tried to carve out a new path through writing and building a mindful and self-compassionate community, but since my father’s death, that dream and the energy for it had faded.

My reflection met my gaze, uncertain and hesitant. Fifty years etched into my skin, fine lines tracing both laughter and worry, a strip of silver roots marking the passage of time, yet I felt invisible in a world that had seemingly moved on.

What now, rainbow? What now?

And beyond the grief, beyond the exhaustion, there was something else.

Anger.

How dare that rainbow give me hope? How dare it let me believe, even for a moment, that things were about to get better? I felt tricked, betrayed by my own willingness to believe in something beyond my suffering.

But as I spiraled deeper into my chasm of despair, something else took shape on the edges of my soul. A truth so simple, so unshaken by my sorrow, that it stopped me in my tracks.

I finally learned the truth about rainbows.

Rainbows do not exist to change our lives. They do not come with promises or guarantees. They are not here to tell us whether things will get better or stay the same.

A rainbow’s only purpose is to illuminate what already exists. To take the ordinary and, for a fleeting moment, drench it in color. It does not erase the rain, nor does it undo the storm. But it shifts our perception. It allows us to see the world, and ourselves, in a way that feels momentarily brighter.

And maybe, just maybe, that is enough.

Maybe healing is not about waiting for life to change but about learning to be with life exactly as it is. Maybe it’s about making space for the full spectrum of our emotions—grief and wonder, despair and hope, pain and beauty—without needing to force one away to make room for the other.

Maybe the rainbow was never a promise of transformation. Maybe it was simply an invitation to see my life, my grief, and even myself through a different lens.

And so, instead of cursing the rainbow for failing to fix me, I let it teach me something else.

That I am still here.

That even in grief, I can experience awe.

That even in uncertainty, wonder can still find me.

That even in the hardest moments, light doesn’t disappear. It refracts, scattering in ways I might not have expected but still can choose to see.

And maybe, just maybe, hope isn’t about believing something external will come along to save us. Maybe hope is simply the courage to keep going, even when we don’t yet see the path ahead.

So, I will keep going.

Not because I know what’s next.

Not because I believe everything will suddenly fall into place.

But because there is still light in this world. Light that is beautiful, redemptive, and multi-faceted, and I want to keep searching for it.

Even in the rain.

Even in the in-between.

Even in me.

About Diana DeVaul

Diana DeVaul, MSW, is a writer and seeker who believes in the healing power of shared truth. While moving through her own season of uncertainty, she offers honest and compassionate words to anyone struggling to find steady ground. Read more at dianadevaul.com.

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