The Truth About Grit: What You’re Not Being Told

Grit matters. Sure—we all know that. However, let’s be honest: most advice on building grit? Kinda useless.

In clinical terms, it’s often called resilience—that inner strength that helps you keep moving when life punches you in the face. And since pain and setbacks are part of every human story, you’d think the advice would be more grounded. Yet too often, it feels like the people writing about grit have never faced a challenge they couldn’t solve with a fat bank account and a few deep breaths.

Let’s get real:
Better budgeting doesn’t erase poverty.
Positive affirmations don’t undo trauma.
And no amount of smiling brings back the dead.

And sure, pain is always relative—but let’s not pretend money doesn’t cushion the blow. When you come from a certain level of wealth, you’re insulated from the harshest edges of tragedy. The kind of resilience required when you don’t have a financial safety net is a whole different beast.

I don’t know your story. I won’t pretend to. I do know mine. And while I’m not here to compete in the Trauma Olympics, I want to be transparent about some of what I’ve lived through:

  • Abandonment from a parent
  • Addiction in close family members
  • Adult ADHD and OCD
  • Cancer
  • Financial collapse after a divorce and bankruptcy
  • Mental health battles
  • Navigating the food stamp system while being homeless in college
  • Physical and emotional abuse from a parent
  • Religious Trauma
  • Stalked by a former husband
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Suicide in close family members and friends
  • The early deaths of parents and loved ones
  • The loss of a business and career
  • Trafficked by a parent

I’m not listing these things for sympathy or shock value. I’m sharing them so you know I’m not speaking from the sidelines. I’ve been in the thick of it. And many of these didn’t happen in isolation—they overlapped, piled on, and showed up back-to-back.

Your struggles may go far deeper than mine—and I don’t pretend to know the weight you carry.

I consider myself blessed and lucky. I genuinely love my life now. That hasn’t always been true. I’m deeply aware of the privileges I hold—being a white female has both opened doors and offered protection that others don’t get. This isn’t about comparing scars. There’s no prize for suffering the most. It hits differently when someone talks about grit from a place of lived struggle—especially when a financial safety net didn’t soften that struggle. At my lowest points, there was no international soul-searching trip. No retreat to find clarity.

I stayed home and faced it—because that’s what survival looked like.

How do you summon the will to move when flat on your back at the bottom of the pit? How do you take the next step when everything familiar has crumbled?

There’s no single answer—no universal formula. What carried me through may not carry you. If there’s one truth I’ve seen hold steady across every story of survival, it’s this:

You have to find two things.

First, the tiniest sparks of joy—no matter how small or fleeting.

Second, the courage to sit with your emotions, name them, and face them head-on.

That’s not the whole path, but it’s where it begins.

Tiny Joys & the Strength to Rise Again

One of our quiet superpowers is this: We tend to find what we seek. Even in the darkest times, if you train your eyes to seek out small moments of good, you will begin to notice them.

These small pockets of joy won’t fix what’s broken. They won’t erase grief or magically lift you out of pain. They will give you somewhere to land, even if just for a breath. Think of them as rest stops on a long, difficult journey—brief shelters where you can catch your breath, refill your spirit, and gather the strength to keep moving. For me, one of those places was writing poetry. I’d go on long walks and write poems about the world around me. Sometimes, I’d sit by a window and write about how the light hit the trees or the sound of birds overhead. It didn’t solve everything. It did give me something to hold onto.

Others find their version of these small oases through sketching, journaling, meditation, or walking—whether at the beach, in the woods, or through city streets. The practice itself doesn’t matter as much as the intention behind it.

The key is to notice what you notice.

Shifts don’t happen overnight. They unfolded over months and years.

In the thick of crisis—when I was navigating poverty, grief, and constant uncertainty—it was those little moments of light that carried me.

If life feels too big right now, don’t try to fix all of it. Just find one tiny thing that makes you smile. That can be enough.

And if you string enough of those moments together, hour by hour, they quietly become the strength you need to stand back up again—even when life has knocked you flat.

Learning to Feel: The Power of Naming Your Emotions

You can’t logic your way out of grief, shame, or any of the other heavy emotions that can feel like quicksand. Relief doesn’t come from figuring them out — it comes from feeling, naming, and facing them head-on. You have to know what you’re feeling to move through it.

For me, that wasn’t a skill I had growing up. I entered adulthood — and honestly, middle age — without a real grasp on my emotions. I could maybe name a few; however, for the most part, I didn’t know how to recognize them, much less process them. It’s something I’m still learning.

What I was good at, though, was pushing my feelings down and avoiding them. Hiding them so well that even I forgot they were there — until they erupted. More than once, years of buried emotion came out like a volcano, leaving me stunned and unsure of what to do. I spent most of my life thinking I was laid-back.

I didn’t get mad often. I didn’t hold grudges. I thought I had emotional control. Then, in my mid-forties, everything fell apart.

With therapy and a lot of self-work, I began to understand that my shame had been the root of everything I was feeling all along. That realization launched me into a journey of emotional discovery. I started paying attention to how emotions showed up in my body.

It shocked me — I was in my late forties with an advanced degree and just beginning to learn how emotions function. The more I leaned in — even to the hard stuff — the more regulated I became. I started listing ways I could safely feel and express emotion. Each of those things helped me reconnect with what I was feeling. And every time I named an emotion instead of pushing it down, I felt a little bit freer.

One of the biggest myths in the self-help world is that it must be because you’re not thinking positively enough when you’re feeling sad, stuck, or discouraged.

Life doesn’t work that way.

Hard things happen — to everyone. And often, the deepest wounds we carry were never our fault. Still, what do we do with those wounds? That’s where our responsibility begins.

You don’t need to blame yourself to grow. You don’t need to feel shame to change.

Some emotions — especially the heavy ones like grief — don’t disappear with time.

When someone you love dies, the ache of that loss never completely leaves. When you allow yourself to feel it, something shifts. It becomes more bearable.

It softens its grip.

There’s real power in understanding the difference between blame and responsibility.

If someone crashes into your car, it’s not your fault. However, it’s still your job to call the insurance company and get the damage fixed. That same principle applies to your emotional life. You don’t have to take on guilt for what happened to you.

You can take ownership of your healing, starting with the simple act of naming how you feel. And when the pain is fresh, don’t pressure yourself to figure it all out. You don’t need all the answers today. Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is find a way to make it to tomorrow. Some days, surviving means distraction.

Other days, it means giving yourself something — anything — to look forward to, no matter how small or silly it might seem. On my lowest days, I made deals with myself. I’d say just get through today, and tomorrow you get to have that $2 lunch at Taco Bell.  I’d swing through the drive-thru, grab my $2 lunch, and sit in my car, eating like a queen. That tiny ritual got me through more days than I can count.

Rebuilding a life doesn’t have to look cinematic. It’s not about dramatic breakthroughs or inspiring montages. Sometimes, grit is just getting through the next ten minutes. Grit shows up in the ordinary — and often in the mess. It looks like crying in the shower, having waffles for dinner, or forcing yourself out of bed to face the world one more time.

If you’re still here — still showing up, still trying — that is grit. It’s not shiny or glamorous. It’s quiet. Raw. Human. The truth is, there’s no shortcut through the hard stuff. Time is the only way forward. And whatever helps you buy yourself more time — a $2 lunch, a nap, a walk, a cry in the shower — that’s not weakness.

That’s resilience.

That’s you, still going.

  • Photo – The Lone Cypress, perched dramatically on a rocky outcrop along the 17-Mile Drive in Pebble Beach, California, is one of the region’s most iconic and enduring symbols. Estimated to be between 200 and 300 years old, this resilient Monterey cypress has weathered centuries of coastal storms — and even survived an arson attempt in the 1980s. Believed to have taken root on the cliffs above the Pacific Ocean sometime in the 1750s, it stands as one of the oldest living landmarks in the area. In 2019, a powerful storm broke off one of its limbs, a quiet reminder of its fragility and strength. When I lived in Pacific Grove, this was always my favorite place to visit — a personal touchstone amid the ever-changing tide. I returned in 2023 while on sabbatical, and it was like visiting an old friend who had withstood the test of time.