Have you ever seen glimpses into a life that you have always wondered about? Always craved, but thought impossible?  Small moments sent from a future that seem so far out of reach that many of us never actually get there.   Always yearning and longing for more because you know more exists.  You know more exists because of these shimmers into a future that never seem to fully root, nor bloom.  You don’t know if you are the soil, the air, the water, or the light.  You feel like all these things at any given moment.  Ready to drown in heaviness, root in stubbornness or grounding (depending), dance and twirl in joy, or just be and bask in the absolute absurdity and miracle that is life.  Every element within you begging for acknowledgement by anyone, someone, anybody. Screaming “SEE ME”. See how I crash and weep, see how I fold and bend, see how I sway and move, see how I dance and cast?  Do you not love me for all of these things?  Do you not love me for all of the complicated and simplistic ways that I am?  

Only darkness answers.  A void derived from seeking outside validation.  A pit of lonely murk and goo that can consume you if not tiptoed around quietly and intentionally.  A reflection of the depths of yourself that is a child saying, “am I loveable?”, “am I worthy?”, “can you keep me safe?”.  Many people will not stare back into this darkness and answer these questions for themselves.  In fact, most people will go through their lives asking everyone they meet to answer these questions for them and determining their self-worth on other’s answers. The issue with asking people to build you up is that they can tear you down.  The people you seek validation from are looking at you from their own mirrors, murk and goo, their own inner battles.  There is no clarity that can ever be given about yourself from someone else.   

In a time of instant gratification, extremely short attention spans, and quick fixes for a myriad of things, it is so easy to ask someone else to help define you.  To post yourself and ask someone else to interrupt who you are.  Am I worthy enough?  Am I seen?  Can I be loved now?  Have I done enough to achieve absorption?  Am I consumable? What do I have to kill within myself so that I can make myself more clickable?  To offer myself bleeding and broken, cut open raw behind the smoke and mirrors. Hoping someone will notice the small trickle of blood seeping under the mask like true humanity searching for a place to land.   

Your true self screaming from your core, begging for real connection and falling flat on its face every time you don’t feel acknowledged in the “right way”.  We are all so scared to show up authentically that many of us don’t even know who we are anymore.  A collection of likes clicks and collages of people and places but offering no depth to what we provide. Forgetting that we are born from magic, made of magic, and will return to magic.  As if this world was built to deprive us of being loved.    To make us forget that we were built for community AND individualism. For we cannot have one without the other.  

And the question remains. When you see those shimmers of the life you want, that you know is true to yourself and your soul, what will you do?  Are you going to lean into them, hold on for dear life, or are you going to keep yourself small and scared?  Are you ready to love yourself enough to stand quietly in stillness as you breathe life back into old festering wounds so that they may be cleansed, sewn and bandaged properly?  Are you ready to be loved authentically as you are without fear?  Are you ready to tear off every mask you have attached to yourself and stand in front of your mirrored darkness and say that you are loved and protected by who you have become? Are you ready to remember your inner spark, your magic, and grow it until you are no longer afraid of your darkness, or anyone else’s? 

It begins with letting go.