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Light In The Dark: The Almost · Unlocking The Paradigm Portal

• 0:00
  Hey, it's Sarah. I'm really glad that you're
• 0:03
  here. And as always, think of my voice
• 0:06
  as a light in the dark tonight. And I'm not here to fix
• 0:09
  anything. I'm not here to explain.
• 0:11
  I'm just here to sit with you for a few minutes in whatever
• 0:14
  you're carrying. But I do want to talk about
• 0:17
  something tonight that I think has more than one face, and I
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  want you to let yourself land on whichever 1 is yours.
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  The first face is the almost, almost chosen, almost enough,
• 0:30
  almost the person they decided to stay for.
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  And the second face is quieter. It's the almost that you
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  created, the closeness that was right there, available, real,
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  reaching for you, and something in you kept it just far enough
• 0:47
  away to stay safe. And both of those are grief.
• 0:53
  And tonight, both of them deserve to be seen.
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  You gave everything you had your time, your softness, your most
• 1:03
  honest self. And you showed up fully,
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  completely without holding back. And it still wasn't enough to
• 1:11
  make them stay or to make them choose you, or to make them love
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  you the way that you loved them. And after, in the quiet, in the
• 1:22
  middle of the night, in the spaces between what you tell
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  people and what you actually feel, a question moved in.
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  What was wrong with me? And I want to stay right there
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  with you for a second, not to answer it yet, just to
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  acknowledge that you've been carrying that question because
• 1:42
  that has weight. And that shows up right around
• 1:46
  now, when things go quiet and there's nothing left to distract
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  you from it. And that question is not the
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  truth about you. It is what the wound sounds like
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  when it has the room to itself. And then there's the other one,
• 2:02
  the person who was there, who was safe, who kept showing up,
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  kept reaching, kept choosing you.
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  And something in you couldn't quite let them all the way in.
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  You let them close enough to feel the warmth of it, but not
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  close enough that losing it would break something in you.
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  And you kept a distance that looked like closeness, and you
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  were present enough that no one would have named it distance.
• 2:30
  But you know. And you know the part of
• 2:33
  yourself that stayed just outside the door, the version of
• 2:37
  you that you decided was too much or not enough or simply too
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  risky to put fully on the table. And maybe that relationship is
• 2:47
  over now, or maybe it's still here, and there's still a part
• 2:51
  of you living slightly outside of it.
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  And either way, there's grief in that too.
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  The grief of connection that you were standing right next to and
• 3:01
  couldn't quite step into. It's not a character flaw.
• 3:05
  That's what it looks like to love people.
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  When you've been taught that loves comes with conditions.
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  When some part of you learned a long time ago that the safest
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  thing was to need less, to show less, to want less because the
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  more you wanted, the more there was to lose.
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  And you were not broken. You were protecting yourself
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  with the only tools that you had.
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  And those tools kept you safe and kept you lonely at the same
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  time. So here's what both almost have
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  in common. Underneath the one who wasn't
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  chosen, and underneath the one who couldn't fully let someone
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  in, there is the same quiet, persistent, devastating
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  question. Am I the kind of person someone
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  could actually stay for? Not the pretty version, Not the
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  perfect version. Not the easy version, and not
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  the version I've decided is safe to show, but the real 1.
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  The whole one. The one with all of the
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  messiness and the needs and the parts that I've been managing so
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  no one has to see them. And if that question lives in
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  you, I see it. And I'm not going to answer it
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  for you tonight. That's not why I'm here.
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  But I want to name that the fact that you're asking it, the fact
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  that it has weight for you, it doesn't mean the answer is no.
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  It means you're carrying something that was handed to you
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  before you had any say in receiving it.
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  The wound says you are the kind of person people leave.
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  What it doesn't say, and what it works very hard to hide, is that
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  you learn to leave 1st. And those are not the same
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  thing. And I want to sit in the grief
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  of this for a minute. Not the grief of the
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  relationship that ended, the grief underneath that.
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  The grief of having loved, or almost loved from behind a wall.
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  Of being in the room and keeping part of yourself outside just in
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  case, and of watching moments of real connection pass by and
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  feeling them go and not stopping them.
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  Because that specific loneliness, the loneliness of
• 5:31
  never fully arriving in genuine love, doesn't get named much.
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  People understand the grief of being left, but they don't
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  always understand the grief of standing at the edge of
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  something real and not being able to step all the way in.
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  But it's real and it counts, and if you've spent years in that in
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  between place, close enough to feel it but far enough to
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  survive losing it, I want you to know that I see how exhausting
• 6:02
  that is. I know that personally, how
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  lonely that is, and how much of yourself has gone into managing
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  the distance. So let me make this clear.
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  You were never too much to be loved.
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  You were someone who never got to find out.
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  Because letting someone see the whole of you felt like a risk
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  that the wound wouldn't let you take.
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  So I'm not going to tell you tonight that it's time to tear
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  the wall down. And I'm not going to give you a
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  challenge or a practice or a thing to go do.
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  That's not what tonight is for. Tonight is just for being honest
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  with yourself about what you're carrying.
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  The almost that happened to you. The almost you kept at arm's
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  length. The question that lives
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  underneath both of them. And you don't have to have the
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  answer yet. You don't have to be ready to do
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  anything differently. You just have to be willing to
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  sit with it honestly. And you're already doing that.
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  You're here, and that counts. So what I want to say to you,
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  clearly, without softening it is this.
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  The capacity you have to love is not the problem.
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  The depth of what you feel, the way you show up, the fullness
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  you bring to people even when you're protecting yourself at
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  the same time, that is not a flaw.
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  That is one of the most real things about you.
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  And the people who couldn't meet it were limited in their
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  capacity, not accurate in their assessment of yours.
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  And the love you held at a distance was not proof that
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  you're unlovable. It was proof that some part of
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  you has been waiting to feel safe enough to find out.
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  And you're allowed to take your time with that.
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  You're allowed to let it be a slow unfolding instead of a
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  dramatic arrival. So I'm going to leave the
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  Lantern right here next to you so you have a little bit of
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  light to shine in front of you, and maybe you feel a little bit
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  less alone. And you don't have to figure
• 8:04
  anything out tonight. Just rest.