Out Of The Dark

I see the light shining on me.

Feb. 28, 2026

Only existing.

Then the dark night of the soul.

What’s germinating?

I just finished an audio book by Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak. The essential question the book asks a life transforming question, am I doing is what my soul yearns to bring to life?

There is a section where Palmer talks about his bouts with depression and the positive outcomes after surviving it all. Sometimes we try to avoid plummeting to the bottom of our lives. We may need to make changes to avoid crashing, but we are keen on staying in that familiar zone, waving that flag “This is who I am”.

It takes going into and through a dark place to get in sync with ourselves. That’s when we can see our fuller, higher selves – our great capacity.

Whether it is a bout with depression, a humiliating experience or some other prolonged extremely unpleasant and unwelcome stretch, there is a silver lining to this cloud.

The one good thing about crashing is that it’s the bottom. Once we hit, we have ample time to look around to see everything – the parts of ourselves that we didn’t want to notice but needed our attention. We can learn some things about ourselves and how we want to live. If we make the most of this joyless experience we move closer to God.

For those that move up and out of this bleak, dry place there is an entirely different lens through which we see ourselves. We are more conscious of possibilities and our capacity to live it out. A rebirth, with a fuller sense of who we are. Palmer said that as we attend to the truth of who we are, the more it becomes available. That we will be comfortable in our own skins for the very first time. He said that we are regrowing our lives and will be fierce with reality when we own all that we have been and done.

Sit with yourself and take three deep breaths.

Having made it out, who will you now be?