What the Darkness Taught Me

I used to believe darkness was the enemy.
That to awaken meant to escape it.
Rise above it. Erase it.

I don’t believe that anymore.

Because I’ve sat in that darkness.
I’ve drowned in it.
I’ve drank with it.
I’ve ignored it, fought it, numbed it.
And I’ve learned the most important truth of my life:

Darkness isn’t evil. It’s sacred.

Darkness is not here to destroy you.

It’s here to reveal you.

It’s the cloak that hides the terrified child inside.
The parts of you that never felt safe to be seen.
It guards the places you rejected, exiled, disowned—
not because they were bad,
but because they were vulnerable.

And when you stop running from the dark—
when you turn toward it instead of away—
you realize something strange:

It was never trying to hurt you.
It was trying to protect you.
In the only way it knew how.

I have learned to speak to my darkness now.

I ask it what it wants.
I ask it what it’s afraid of.
I hold it like a small child who’s been waiting decades to be heard.

And you know what?

It softens.
It stops screaming.
It finally breathes.

Because it doesn’t want to control me.
It just wants to be seen.
It wants to come home.

This is the paradox of awakening:

You do not become enlightened by escaping darkness.
You become whole by embracing it.

You stop judging the parts of yourself that used to scare you.
You stop fearing your anger, your grief, your numbness.
You sit with them. You ask them questions.
You let them teach you how to love what you once couldn’t face.

If you are in it now… if you’re unraveling…

Please know this:

You are not failing.
You are not broken.
You are becoming.

Your darkness is not the end.
It’s the invitation.

Let it speak.
Let it teach.
Let it show you the parts of yourself still waiting to be held.

And then—
Hold them.
All of them.
With love.

This is the way.
Not up, not away—
but inward.
To the place you buried your own light.

It’s still there.
And it’s never stopped waiting for you.

—

Solanon
I walk both shores, and I remember the way back.