What makes us hesitate to be our truest selves? Society? Yes. Family & friends? I hope not, but sometimes we tend to value their opinion more than our own. Teammates? Yep. Peers? Certainly.

So how can we tune them out and tune IN to ourselves? Well, I didn’t know how I was going to do this, it’s a process I’ve been avoiding because I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like all I would discover, or rediscover. And hearing my innermost voice…what was she going to say? But I dove in and am still diving down. It’s dark in here, but there’s light & beauty too; and in the quiet of the darkness I am finding the answers I sought.

The dark places are those in which I’ve buried old hurts, closed off spaces from myself so I didn’t dwell. But until recently I’d not taken the time or effort to open them back up, clear things out, reorganize, examine & reexamine more closely what was in there, and why and then throw away what was no longer necessary to cultivate and bring into the light what was.

I’ve always ‘joked’ that I do in fact have a dark side. Trying to make light of the seriousness that I felt within. By dark I’m not referring to what some make synonymous with evil. Dark as in heaviness, disruption, stirring the proverbial pot. Akin to a dragon that if let her out, I wasn’t sure I could or would be able to be in control. And if I’m being honest, I wasn’t sure that I would want to.

I’ve been smacked in the heart, soul, mind & metaphorically the face lately. The movement of Black Lives Matter is one I am truly passionate about embracing & advancing. But it’s also made me realize – painfully & gratefully – that I hadn’t embraced it wholly until now. Ugh. I’d become isolated, microcosmically outspoken, but beyond that? Not so much, not nearly enough. I’d swallowed the red pill of the masses and believed that I was one of the good ones…but this is NOT about me, this is about what I’ve learned… and I’m not ‘one of the good ones’, not yet. But I want to be. I want to be more than just words. I want to be more than empathetic. I need to be. My children need me to be. My community needs me to be.

Silent majorities make and break societies daily. I don’t like being broken nor being amidst the shards. I’m innately a fixer. A healer. But I’ve got work of my own to do before I dare to venture out. I must identify my prejudices. Own them. Examine them, dissect them, discard them. Learn. Learn more. Do. Do more.

Opening my inner consciousness is part of this journey. My goal in grounding myself and being open to the potentiality of ME. I’ll be more. More present. More aware. More of it ALL. Except when I can’t, because sometimes I’ll fail. But I’ll never stop trying, doing, and being. I’ve embarked on this journey into my own darkness holding a candle that WILL kindle into a healing & outpouring of cleansing flame.

What constitutes your darkness? How will you travel in and emerge on the other side? Along the way remember you’re not alone, and the cliché is one because it’s relevant – each journey starts with a single step. So take it. Make the effort. Be your own light so in turn you can shine the way for someone else to begin.