You can’t run from what can’t be outrun.

In my 20s, life’s nasty bits poured a bucket of ice water on my head when a guy I dated for 3 years cheated on me. I could not bear to accept what happened. I removed myself from life. Instead of admitting someone I loved had shattered my heart into million pieces, I withdrew myself from the world and hid for 6 months in my bedroom. I thought my pain would disappear on its own or in time. But dark emotions do not heal when you do not process them.

Life’s nasty bit had barged in my door. Denying its existence threw me in a dark pit. The pit was so black that I couldn’t see. No light penetrated the gloom. Not a glimmer of luminosity reached me. Every day felt like the bottom of the ocean. Frigid and sunless. I had sunk in denial.

I was not really living in the present.

After 6 long months, I couldn’t take my denial any more. That’s the thing about life’s nasty bits. They keep knocking on your door until you let them in. The only conceivable solution to save myself was to embrace life’s nasty bits, too. I accepted someone I loved had cheated on me. I told my wound to my mom. She listened. She said “aha” in her soft voice. She caressed my cheek with the back of her hand. She kissed my tears away. And when I curled up like a fetus and sobbed uncontrollably, she drew me in and embraced me.

The feeling of release was intense. Cathartic. Like a rebirth.

Until that moment, I didn’t realize what it really meant to live life daringly.

Most articles, podcasts, and books don’t embrace life’s nasty bits.

They focus only on the nice bits of the present. They are about escaping life in front of you, in pursuit of a better future. That’s a huge problem.

Type on Google, “how to live in the present,” and you will not find a single article on life’s nasty bits. I’ve checked. This is absurd. Whether we like it or not, irritability, anger, gloom, decay, and decline will show up at our door. So why do we not see them in articles more often? Why do we see only flowers and mountain peaks as a featured image?

Any article, podcast, or book that tells us about success, happiness, and laughter all the time is denying reality. Life is not all sunshine and rainbow. Have your nice dresses ever been ruined by an unexpected rain from the heavens? I have. One time I was on my way to a friend’s birthday party and unexpected rain had soaked my clothes in seconds.

Life is like that. When you least expect it, its nasty bits will pull the rug from under you in a matter of seconds.

Fighting to pull the rug back is of no use.

A rose cannot be a rose without its thorn.

The thorn is part of the rose.

I wish someone had told me life is not all sunshine and roses. I would have processed my dark emotions quickly if I had opened my door and dared to look at life’s nasty bits in the eye, instead of cowering from them.

When I say embrace life’s nasty bits, I don’t mean for you to dance in joy when things go south in your life. We don’t do that. I mean to accept life’s unpleasantness the same way we accept a thorn is part of a beautiful rose.

When life’s nasty bits barge in your door. When you’re heartbroken. When a friend disappoints you. When your startup fails. When someone you love breaks your heart. When you lose a dear friend through sudden death. When customers write a horrible comment on your product. When a publisher rejects your work. When your boss fires you without any valid reason. When your relationship fails.

What do you do?

Do you try to run from what cannot be outrun?

Take a relationship for example. When we’re in love, everything feels euphoric. Every day is full of sunshine and rainbows, grasslands, green pastures, streamlined rivers, happy greetings, hugs, hot coffee in rain, electrified nights, passionate love, and consistent blushing.

We would be eternally happy if no relationship problems barge in our door. But that is simply not the reality. This is where our relationship is tested. What do we do when a storm strikes our relationship? When disagreements escalate? When disaster barges in our home?

Do you dare to live in the present by embracing life’s nasty bits, too? If you do, you’re brave. You’re doing something about your relationship. You’re working on it.

Or do you choose fantasy where you deny the disaster knocking on your door? Do you try to run from this problem? You can run but you’re killing your relationship. Because you need to work on your relationship even when things go south.

They’re part of life. Failure, rejections, heartbreaks, breakups, dark clouds in your life, sadness, gloom, and death are part of life. Accepting and embracing them when they barge in our door is how we can daringly live in the present.

Embracing life’s unpleasantness is a big challenge.

But it’s worth it.

You can deal with life’s unpleasantness in two ways. You can try to outrun them and be defeated – because you can never outrun life’s nasty bits. The only thing you’re doing by denying them entry into your life is denying reality.

Or you can dare to embrace them and live life daringly. Instead of trying to remove life’s nasty bits or hoping you will outrun them one day, open your door and let them in. Try accepting them. You may as well since they’re life’s package.

When life’s nasty bits barge in your door, that’s when you need yourself the most – when you need the only thing that is appropriate to give – and, ironically, the most difficult to give – your presence and acceptance of life’s nasty bits. To really live in the present.

When life’s nasty bits barge in our door, let it be a challenge we embrace. Not to run from that can’t be outrun.