Spirituality, Therapy, and the Good Life

Photographer: Kristen Fowles

The following is the first of three related blog posts.

On this, the last day of  2013, I’m reflecting on the past three years, – years that have proven to be the most painful and challenging of my adult life — my very own dark ages.  These have been years that  both tested and shattered me.  Years that I have needed every bit of wisdom and skill accumulated over a lifetime to pick up the pieces of my broken self.  Years that broke my heart and beat me down.  Years that I would never ever want to face again, years that had I been forewarned about, I would have run from screaming.

Why am I about to share such a huge part of my personal life here in this blog?  Because of an email that a young woman sent me.  An email that contained so much despair that it kept me tossing and turning last night until the wee hours of this morning.  She ended her email by writing that while she appreciated my wisdom and compassion, she knew I couldn’t possibly understand, and though I had worked hard and deserved all the wonderful gifts that my life contained, I had not had to face anything like what she was confronting now.   She concluded that some things that happen to us simply demolish us, leaving us without hope and in total darkness.

I wrote back to her explaining that I know all too well about fumbling hopelessly in the dark along an uncharted path which offered inadequate shelter and no exits.  During these past three years I’ve endured pain so heavy and dense that even now it can literally take my breath away, have suffered so intensely that my body has still not recovered, and have fought to control a rage so consuming that I sometimes fear it will burn me alive if I cannot break free of it.  Living has hurt, hurt desperately.  And much of what I have lost, I can never, ever recover.

I will share some of what these past three years have contained in my next two blog posts, as I am only now beginning to truly fathom how they have shattered, tested, taught, and transformed me.  I’m sharing this painful part of my life in order to connect with, reassure, and honor all of those who have lived through or are suffering through their own period of pain and darkness.  They are my sisters and brothers and I am holding them close in my heart as I write…