A couple of weeks ago I was writing an article about witches and pagans and turning inward during the dark part of the year. That gave me pause to think back over this year and in doing so I realized that I actually started that turning inward process round about July, and this year I have gone further inward and traveled farther to Other places than I have ever done before.
This was not a deliberate attempt to disengage; my actions were instinctive and the journey itself was the only destination. Disengaged just happened to be one of the places I landed.
The pause to think also led me down a thought road to the conclusion that the depth of my journey and the degree of disengagement both helped me make it through a time of year that is often extremely difficult for me. I hope this awareness does not change the process as I move into January's emotional storms.
I have talked publicly and honestly about a lot of heavy emotional, mental, and spiritual stuff since 2011 when I first shared my thoughts about my youngest daughter's struggle with mental health and addiction. At first I wrote because I needed to get it all out of my head, and then because I hoped it might help someone else if they could see that there were not alone. The issues are different now, but I still write for both those reasons.
I think it is important to be honest and real about the way grief, depression, and anxiety sometimes knock me down, and just as real about the fact that I always get back up. Always. I want everyone else who is struggling to know that it is possible to do that. I want people to know that it is normal to have a less than Hallmark holiday perfect life, that it is normal to talk about it, and normal to ask for help carrying the stuff that gets too heavy. That is it normal and real to enjoy a moment or an afternoon or a day and then have some random word or song or thought send you hurtling into the brick wall of an anxiety attack, then find your way back to good space.
Life is like that sometimes. PTSD is like that sometimes. Grief is like that sometimes. Even love is like that sometimes.
I watched my father drown himself in depression-fueled grief over his misguided and anxiety driven perceptions of every mistake he ever made in his life. I sometimes take similar nose-dives, especially related to my parenting failures and mistakes. But a huge difference between me and my dad is that I have learned how to do the work to get out of those riptides and he never did or never could. I will always believe that inability to heal is what killed him.
Shadow work is not a walk in the park, but it is an important part of the process of deep healing. I am grateful for those who showed me that it is possible, and for those who help me along the way. I am doubly grateful for whatever or whoever it was that brought me into this world with a spirit that was never afraid to search for answers, knowledge, and magic.
These days I share a lot about the happy aspects of my life; Rhodes in his many forms of being, my kittens, my gardens, my spiritual path. Even though there are days I don't want to get out of bed, days when anxiety holds court, days when I cannot stop crying, I always look for the better, brighter side. I won't ever deny that the dark side exists, but I don't ever let it beat me, either.
Part of defeating the darker aspects in any persons life and of this world is keeping them out in the open and shining light on them. When I ask folks to "rise on up and put your shine on" I am asking them to be a part of the light that helps keep darkness at bay or at least shows it for what it really is.
That doesn't take a falsely manufactured megawatt smile, or a bubbly, gushing personality. It just takes being.
Even the softest light pushes back the darkness.
Peace out.
