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Light In The Dark: What You Did To Survive · Unlocking The Paradigm Portal

• 0:00
  Hey, it's Sarah. I'm really glad that you're here
• 0:04
  tonight. I'm not sure what it is you're
• 0:06
  carrying or what you're feeling, but think of my voice as a light
• 0:10
  in the dark, not to show you everything at once, but just a
• 0:13
  few steps ahead so you feel a little bit less alone.
• 0:17
  And I want to sit with you in something tonight, something I
• 0:20
  know very well, something I've turned over in the quiet more
• 0:23
  times than I can count. And I have a feeling that you
• 0:26
  have too. And maybe you are right now,
• 0:30
  there are things that you did in a harder season, choices you
• 0:34
  made when you were just trying to get through, when getting
• 0:37
  through was the whole goal and there wasn't much leftover for
• 0:41
  anything else. And maybe you left in a way that
• 0:45
  wasn't clean, or maybe you stayed way longer than you feel
• 0:49
  you should've. Maybe you shut down when someone
• 0:52
  needed you present or said something you can't take back,
• 0:56
  or disappeared in ways you still can't fully explain.
• 1:00
  And maybe you chose the exit that was available instead of
• 1:03
  the one that was right, and you got through and you're here, but
• 1:08
  you're still holding it. Not as a memory, as a verdict.
• 1:14
  And I know that loop, the way it comes back in the quiet and the
• 1:18
  way your mind knows exactly where to go when you're tired or
• 1:23
  alone or things get hard straight to the case against
• 1:27
  you. I've been in that loop.
• 1:30
  I've written that verdict about myself more times than I would
• 1:33
  care to admit. And what I keep having to come
• 1:37
  back to slowly, not gracefully and not all at once, is that I
• 1:44
  was judging the person I was then by the standards of someone
• 1:48
  I hadn't become yet. And I'm guessing that you're
• 1:52
  doing that too. I can feel it in the way that
• 1:56
  you're carrying this. That version of you, the one in
• 2:00
  the middle of it didn't have what you have now.
• 2:04
  They didn't have the healing, the language, the distance, the
• 2:07
  capacity. They were doing the best math
• 2:11
  that they could with the numbers they had in front of them in
• 2:14
  that moment. And that's not an excuse.
• 2:18
  It's just the truth, and it's a truth I've had to learn to sit
• 2:22
  with for myself before I could offer it to anyone else.
• 2:26
  And the fact that it still hurts you, that maybe you still wince
• 2:31
  and still wish things had gone differently and still care about
• 2:34
  what it cost, That's not proof that something is fundamentally
• 2:39
  wrong with you. That's grief.
• 2:43
  That's honest, quiet grief for how something went, and I know
• 2:49
  the difference between that and guilt can be almost impossible
• 2:54
  to feel in the dark, and I've been confused by the 2 so many
• 2:59
  times. But grief?
• 3:01
  Grief says I wish that had been different, and guilt says I am
• 3:07
  what went wrong and you are not what went wrong.
• 3:12
  You are not the verdict that you keep writing about yourself at
• 3:16
  2:00 in the morning. You were surviving.
• 3:20
  So was I, so was everyone, and we made it.
• 3:26
  And that has to count for something.
• 3:30
  So just take a minute and think about what would it feel like to
• 3:35
  give yourself, like that version of you in that season, even a
• 3:41
  fraction of the grace you'd give someone you love who was going
• 3:45
  through something hard. Not to erase it, not to pretend
• 3:49
  it didn't leave marks, but just to say you're in it, you got
• 3:54
  through, and you're still here. What would you say?
• 4:00
  So I'm going to leave the light right here next to you.
• 4:04
  And remember, you don't have to resolve this tonight, and you
• 4:09
  don't have to arrive at forgiveness on any particular
• 4:13
  timeline or decide what it all means.
• 4:17
  You're just allowed to be here, carrying whatever it is that
• 4:22
  you're carrying. And know that surviving was
• 4:25
  worth doing. Even when it was messy, even
• 4:30
  when it wasn't graceful, and even when it left Marks and
• 4:35
  scars, you made it, and that has always been enough.
• 4:41
  That is everything.