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I consider myself lucky because there was talk of spirit, faith, and the mystery of creation in my household. There was pain, lots of it, but accountability and consciousness were baked into it. Before drifting to sleep, there were songs of protection sung over my little body, and blessings prayed over me with soft hands. I was a lucky one, and every day I am grateful to the loved ones that planted in me a curiosity and connection to the human spirit.
If you grew up hearing voices around you speaking to you of your inner world, this is the fortune I’m talking about. There would have been loved ones showing you two realities—the one we see outside of us and the one we see and feel within. If you were one of the lucky ones, there would have been loved ones asking you important questions about your feelings, your choices, and the center of your heart. You would have had support in understanding there are many ways to hold yourself and the wild voices within you. If you were one of the lucky ones, you would have been encouraged to see your inner and outer life as equally important and valuable. You would have been nudged toward greater understanding and thus a greater capacity to endure and explore the terrain of your life.
Knowing how hard life can be, I often think of where I would have been without the whispers of spiritual guidance, how life would feel if no one had pointed to the soft light at the borders of everything. An ache as deep as time tightens around my ribs for all human life. For the ones who were not shown love, for the ones left alone with their confusion and pain. For the ones without soft hands praying over them before they drifted to sleep. It’s not pity I’m talking about, its compassion for the state of our humanity, and how slow we are to change. Its compassion for each human mind swirling like dervishes in invisible worlds of worry and hostile thought. We are all hooked into the same carousel of faceless, sometimes impossible fears. Placid, like lakes, we walk around concealing the contents of our bodies— The paradox, the shadow, the duality. Regardless of if you were “a lucky one”, or a not so lucky one, we still must walk our life alone and find for ourselves the strength and courage hidden inside. Suffering is unavoidable no matter the nature of our nurturing. Each of must learn to hear the whispers within us and to follow our inner guidance through many hard places with what little provisions we have.
When my son was only four years old, he asked me why there were so many voices in his head. I didn't know how to answer him. I wanted to tell him that inside him is where the voices gather—all of them—the ones that cause our suffering, but also the ones that set us free. But I didn't think he'd understand. You see, the inner world wakes when we are very young. We find side by side with us, as we open and grow, an invisible world that needs tending and love and ownership. We must shine the light within. This recognition of an inner world, with its many voices, begins automatically to soothe the sharp edges of our suffering. It allows meaning and courage, and love to be brought into the home of our bodies and beings. To normalize this taking place is to heal the human heart.
I used to struggle immensely with the coming of night. I've heard this echoed for many others. When the day begins turning itself slowly into night, we can feel ourselves come crashing back onto itself. We can hold some light close to us in the daylight, feeling goodness and grace skipping across our fields. We can keep our thoughts floating from one angle of hope to another, but when the hand of father night comes to close the door of light, we can begin to falter and quiver like the short wick of a candle with its wax almost gone. We brace ourselves as we start to feel what we have been batting away in the light of day.
I watch my sons wrestling with this, too. They sometimes wake in fear of something they can't describe or name. As they lay in the dark of their room, the creatures of their discontent rise and poke them in their soft beds. They don't know what they are feeling, but something in them is afraid. I tell them to call me when this happens. I don't want them to hold this fear alone. I tell them I will go with them to ensure they learn how to face this place. I teach them how to watch from a distance as the ghosts come barreling through. We shouldn't have to hold our fears alone. They are real, and we are not wrong for hearing and experiencing them. Shame is what turns the mind on us, setting in place a chronic fear and avoidance reflex.
I'm not sure when exactly the evening stopped holding power me. I know something began to change when I started to befriend this aspect of my experience. I've learned that nothing can hold constant dominion over us if we continue to stand, open-eyed and open-hearted before it. Pain and suffering remain rigid and inflexible unless our patience and presence has softened them. The voices can come, and we can learn to watch from a distance as the ghosts come barreling through.
If you feel unease coming to you at the end of your day, or you abruptly wake in the night choked by something without a name, this perspective might help heal the fright and move you into a place of agency. Perhaps it may help give birth to curiosity and intrigue around what this season of your life is inviting forward. I wrote this for myself in the darkest nights of my life. They are the whispers helping us walk toward our unconscious, wielding a bright light.
What if you could learn to see the goodness of all the returning voices of your worry and fear?
What if even the fraught darkness was somehow just the light wearing a veil?
