The Ladder

Some mornings I wake up and the first thing I smell is the pile of shit I'm still standing in.

Not literally.

The worries. The circumstances. The evidence my old programming has been collecting all night, just waiting for me to open my eyes.

If you're living in a pile of shit, it's really hard to wake up and not smell it.

Nobody tells you that part.

They talk about mindset. About frequency. About choosing your reality.

I believe in all of it.

They just leave out the morning where you have to drag yourself out of bed not because you feel inspired, but because some tired, hard-won part of you already knows you'll feel better once you're up.

That's not a failure of mindset.

That's just the bottom rung.

---

Years ago I came across Abraham Hicks' Emotional Guidance Scale — a framework that helped me understand something important: you don't have to leap from despair to joy. You only have to find the next rung.

Some mornings I wake up three rungs down.

Some mornings I wake up ten.

So let me just tell you what climbing actually looks like. Not the theory. The Tuesday morning version.

---

The voice comes first.

*Why bother. Nothing works out for you. Who do you think you are.*

I used to argue with it. Drown it out. Pile affirmations on top of it like sandbags.

That never worked. The harder I pushed, the louder it got.

So now I just look at it.

*Oh. There you are.*

No drama. No fight. Just a nod, the way you'd nod at a neighbor you've seen a hundred times.

*I see you. I know you're scared. It's okay. We're doing it anyway.*

That's it. That's the whole move.

It doesn't fix anything. It just gets me off the floor.

The funny thing is, that tiny act of noticing changed everything that came after.

---

For a long time I tried to force myself into believing things.

*Everything is getting better.*

And my brain, looking around at my actual life, would say: *no it's not.*

So I stopped arguing with myself and started asking instead.

*Why does everything always seem to work out for me?*

Here's why that works.

Your ego — your brain — always wants to be right. That's not a flaw. That's just how it's wired. When you make a statement it can't verify, it pushes back. Hard. It will find every piece of evidence that contradicts you, because being right is its whole job.

But a question is different. A question doesn't ask your brain to agree with something. It asks your brain to go find the answer. And your brain — specifically the part called the Reticular Activating System, the filter that decides what your mind pays attention to — will start scanning everything around you for proof that the question is true.

Suddenly you notice the text that came at the right moment. The door that opened after three that didn't. The small evidence you'd been walking past for weeks because you weren't looking for it.

You're not lying to yourself. You're giving your brain a different assignment. And your brain, because it always wants to be right, will work hard to complete it.

---

Then I walk.

Outside. Real air. Whether I feel like it or not.

Last winter I sat in my car, holding a coffee mug for warmth and staring at a bank balance that made my stomach drop.

I wasn't inspired.

I wasn't aligned.

I wasn't "high vibe."

I just put my shoes on and went for a walk.

By the time my feet were actually moving I was already a rung higher than when I woke up.

Some mornings it's a meditation from my friend Nikki Cook. Some mornings it's Joe Dispenza in my ear telling me there's more to this than the 3D mess in front of me. Some mornings it's just Bob Marley, because Bob Marley is medicine and I will not be talked out of that.

Lately it's Dancing in the Moonlight, on repeat, in my kitchen, for absolutely no reason.

I've tried a lot of tools over the years. Tapping. Breathwork. Sound. Some worked immediately. Some only worked when I came back to them months later as a different version of myself.

The tool was never the point.

The point was that I kept climbing.

---

Somewhere along the way I realized this wasn't just about mornings.

I didn't get much of a childhood. I spent most of it reading rooms instead of playing in them.

Managing danger before I had words for it.

So now, on purpose, I play.

I color outside the lines. I sit outside and do nothing useful at all. I make believe, like I'm seven, like nobody's watching, because nobody is.

I spent so many years being serious because I had to be.

I called it strength.

I'm learning it was just armor.

I'm putting some of it down. Not all at once. Just today's piece of it.

---

The decisions you make today build the habit that decides your tomorrow.

Nobody wakes up one day just feeling good.

You climb there. One choice. Then another. Long before you can feel any of it working.

That's not discipline.

That's devotion.

To yourself.

---

On the mornings none of it feels like enough, I think one thing.

*If I'm going to be here, let me mean something.*

I think about her. The woman who needs exactly what I carry. The one doing everything right and starting to wonder if something is wrong with her.

Nothing is wrong with you.

You just haven't found your way back yet.

Some days you climb ten rungs.

Some days you just get off the floor.

Maybe tomorrow you'll climb ten.

Maybe tomorrow you'll only manage one.

Either way — you're still climbing.

And that's enough for today.

Both count.

Both are becoming.

---

What's the one thing that moves you up even a single rung on your hardest mornings?

Tell me in the comments. I read every one.

And if this sounds like your bestie — send it to her.

She needs to hear it too.

xo,

Kimberly

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*🌿 One of the rungs I reach for almost every day: the MAP Coaching Institute magnetizations. They help me shift when my brain wants to camp out at the bottom of the ladder. Visit [kimberlyrush.com/curatedessentials](https://www.kimberlyrush.com/curatedessentials) and use code **KIM4480** for 10% off eligible offers.*