There are days when the darkness feels magnetic to me—like it is pulling me in. I cannot stop the record in my head of taunts, lashing words, cruel insults, replaying old wounds, rehearsing pain like it’s my job. I turn around physically on the tennis court and walk back to the curtain, tears in my eyes. I breathe. “I am okay. I am here. I am supposed to be here,” I say to myself. After all, it is truly human to want to look at the shadows, to sit with them, to ask why? over and over again.
Sometimes we need to. Sometimes the only way to move forward is to walk straight into that heavy place—to honor it, to really feel it. The heartbreak, the rejection, the loneliness, the times we were invisible or discounted—those times created space for the compassion we hold now. That’s where our depth comes from. Is there really even compassion without suffering?
BUT… there is a fine line between feeling and marinating. Between reflection and rumination. And sitting there for too long can blur that line, trapping us in our sensitivity and victimhood. Science has shown that our bodies hold onto traumatic memories, and this is vital for our survival and to prevent us from repeating harmful situations. But on the flip side of that, those memories literally reactivate the same fear and stress responses as if the danger were still present. Our nervous systems are unable to tell the difference between then and now. So why continuously relive it?
Here is where the right friend comes in. That one friend who meets your softness, senses the darkness creeping into your eyes, but has just the right amount of hardness and fortitude that you need, who can look you straight in the eyes and say, fiercely but also with great love,
“Now you can fuck right on off. Stop that shit. Get out of that head. Stop saying that shit to yourself. It’s annoying and I need you to stop it right now.”
That one sentence breaks the spell. It’s like being handed a rope in the dark. Suddenly, I’m reminded that I am MORE than what happened to me. We all are. We have CHOICES. Change WILL occur. Impermanence IS life.
It’s okay to have shadows. It’s okay to touch the pain. But we are not meant to build a house there. We are not our suffering.
So I honor the hurt, yes. And the darkness. But then—I pull myself back. And sometimes I even need a friend to pull me out. And that is okay. Sometimes I laugh. Sometimes I cry. But I take a deep breath, feel the ground beneath my feet, and step into the light again. Sometimes it’s even an actual step. And the light is there. And it’s IN there. Even if we forget it’s there. It is there. And we are here. Right where we should be.