loving the darkness will set you free
a month ago…
I ventured to Tulum, Mexico for a yoga retreat. And as a mother of a toddler, who has been through massive hardship and trauma these last three years like many, I felt like this trip was finally the permission slip to finding the peace I had been seeking. You see, just over three years ago in 2019, I picked up and relocated my entire life from the East Coast to the West, risking it all, not knowing anyone, in a leap of faith to set roots and deepen the dream life my husband and I held together. About six months into our new life, I was 20 weeks pregnant, and the world came to a screeching halt. Like everyone else on the planet, our lives shut down for the pandemic. I gave birth in July of 2020 to a beautiful baby girl, and although it was one of the most joyous moments of my life, it was layered with darkness. I gave birth at the height of the pandemic and also in the midst of an incredibly intense fire season in Northern California. This left our little new family completely isolated and paralyzed in fear. I had gone though massive transformation of becoming a new mother with no family support, not even friends nearby, an entire continent away from all familiarity, at a time that we were all socially distanced. Fast-forward almost exactly one year, that lifeline of support became even smaller, leaving a giant hole in my heart when my mom passed away in 2021. Luckily in 2023, I have finally begun feeling glimmers of optimism, hope, normalcy, and freedom again.
At this point in my life, I had thought I had done a deep dive into self-exploration and growth, thanks to my work in positive psychology, yoga, and mindfulness. However, this retreat really caught me off-guard, in a dark, but surprisingly good way. At our first evening yoga practice, we were asked to pull cards, and mine symbolically, was a tarantula. At first, I wanted to jump out of my skin and put the card back into the pile, but instead I chose to lean into the fear and get curious (as much as it freaked me out). This was just the beginning of some of the uncomfortable situations I put myself in: it was very hot with no relief of AC, I was eaten alive by mosquitos, and knew the sightings of some critters like scorpions were not only real, but likely – and boy did they did happen! We also participated in a three-hour Temazcal Ceremony where we sat in darkness enclosed in a dome of sweltering heat, only to experience a spiritual death and rebirth. And after all these moments of leaning into fear and discomfort while in Mexico, I finally did find peace on the yoga retreat. As I laid there in Savasana, on a beautiful sunny morning, a powerful epiphany came over me. I had a vision of dark heavy shadow over my being, and slowly from my left side, a white wave of light washed over me. I intuitively knew this wave of light was pure love energetically. As I felt it wash over my body, cell by cell, it hugged the darkness within me, every single bit of me, and as it did, the darkness, heaviness, the sadness, the grief, the fear, the anger, the trauma, the parts I just simply don’t like about me, finally felt free.
All of these neglected, abandoned, shunned parts of me, finally felt seen, loved, and liberated.
It was the most incredible shift I’ve experienced to fully find deep self-compassion, self-love, and self-trust within myself. What I discovered was simply that when we love the darkest parts of our life, we lean in, we hug it, we see those shadows for what they are, we don’t need to be overwhelmed or afraid anymore. We can welcome these parts in to be loved - because that is what they desperately need. We can finally set the darkest parts free.
In the famous words of Martin Luther King Jr.,
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.”
Embodied completely within us, we have the innate capability to courageously embrace our own darkest shadows with the light and love we hold inside to allow ourselves to heal deeply.
