You can’t just reduce what you’ve been through to a set of symptoms to heal.

Loss, tragedy, abuse, injustice… what you have been through is the story of your life.

Yes, it is important to learn how to heal the body and the nervous system and banish trauma from the body.

But there’s more to it, from the truth that I know to be true.

In my own healing journey, of which I suffered through abuse, neglect, and my fair share of the dark side…

The majority of my healing has come from rebirthing through the loss. It has come from understanding the pain and loss as both tragic and catalytic.

It is who I’ve become- not only enduring, but awakening through the darkness, that I treasure most about myself.

This is a paradox.

I am not saying anybody, including myself, should pedestalized abuse, loss and injustice.

You have to learn to live with things side-by-side, that is the human experience.

The horror and the catalytic rebirthing sit side-by-side. Accountability for the perpetrators and awakening into your true self through the process of being a victim of horrible things, sits side-by-side.

There is a part of each of our psyches that needs to be mad, to blame, lash out, want revenge, turn life into a battle of dark versus light. That is real too. It is all real.

The part that I am most invested in, is the part where I use the darkness to transform, awaken, and understand… and attune with… the natural process of life that braids dark and light together.

The sacred is not just perfect light. The sacred is not just eternal sunshine. The sacred is also the horrors, the vicissitudes, the losses.

I know all I am doing in this blog is explaining something. This may not land in your heart. But I still felt compelled to talk about the value of the darkness.

And healing from the darkness.

Both.

I think the reason we love dark TV shows, and movies and books and stories is because the telling of the tale honors the darkness and gives an outlet for the soul to heal.

The soul heals through stories not through nervous system hacks or scientific calculations. 

This doesn’t mean you have to write a memoir. But maybe you write morning pages, off the cuff poetry, or talk to a person you can share the story of what you’ve been through with, or talk out loud to the person you lost who lives on the other side. Talk to your angels. Find a way to express yourself.

There are endless ways to express on a soul level. The key is to express. 

The hacks help. Learning how to regulate the nervous system is mandatory. Parenting the inner child is everything.

And one of the most powerful parts of parenting your inner child is to give honor to their story of pain through expressing it, Expressing the story and giving honor to the tragedy is the healing.

Same goes for the adult.

You never know when it’s your turn for a dark night.

The other part of healing is turning tragedy into fuel for transformation. That’s how it works. It’s very mysterious and I’m not going to talk about it here. Not yet. Not in this form.

More to come. 🌙