“Not yet,” something said. “It’s not time,” that something was me. A distant light flickered inside. I had too much fire to give up, even if that fire was unrecognizable. My anchor, my saving grace, two focal points grew clear. One became my beacon of hope and empowerment. The other kept me grounded in reality while feeling completely untethered to it.

ANCHOR ONE

Sometime before the darkness began to settle, I’d stumbled upon a concept in a book: radical responsibility. This idea of radical responsibility had great appeal to me. Can you see why? The alternative meant my current life circumstances were a series of unfortunate events. The alternative meant my life rested on the whims of both chaos and chance. The alternative meant I had no greater power over my life than a leaf has over brutal winds.

Radical responsibility—I chose to believe. It was my last gasp for power and influence in my life. Radical responsibility meant that somehow, some way, I’d steered myself into a life experience of unbearable grief. This also meant I had the power to crawl my way toward a less excruciating life experience. It meant not only relief from this pain but hope for something better than pain. The idea of joy began to sparkle like a distant flicker in the darkest night. Abandoned by all other stars, still, it shined. In that moment of complete despair, radical responsibility became my saving grace.

But what was there to accept responsibility for? I didn’t cause my mother’s cancer. I did provide around-the-clock care for her after her condition became terminal. I didn’t cause my grandfather’s blood clot. I didn’t even know about the surgery; my grandmother thought I had too much on my plate and didn’t want to worry me. I had no hand in my husband’s addiction. I never did drugs and hardly drank. I did, however, orchestrate the intervention needed for him to seek treatment. I bore the brunt of the mental, emotional, and financial weight of both his treatment costs and our life at home. His mother and I were among the few, if not the only ones who understood and supported his sobriety. What could I possibly accept responsibility for? What could I have done that I hadn’t already done?

I decided to zoom out. I zoomed out more. I zoomed out even more. I remembered that my soul chose this life and I chose the possibility that this could be a part of my life experience. I chose this potential reality. But, why? Why would I choose this? The ‘why’ is what we gravitate to next. Right? We tell ourselves the answers are in the ‘why.’ There’s something hard-wired into our Psyche. We search for refuge in the ‘why.’ We tell ourselves if we unearth the ‘why,’ we’ll know which steps are dangerous. We tell ourselves if we know the ‘why’ then we’ll be safe from that pain entering our life again.

The unsettling truth is that we rarely learn why life unfolds as it does.

The unsettling truth is that the ‘why’ is often less useful than accepting the ‘what.’

The ‘what’ is –  it happened and it hurt.

The ‘what’ is –  this experience is now part of my story.

The ‘what’ is, “Now what?”

Rest assured, though, the ‘why’ operates on a need-to-know basis. 

When and if we need to know, the ‘why’ will appear.

The ‘what’ became my light; accepting the ‘what’ around me and remembering the ‘what’ within me. I found my power in deciding to be powerful. Searching outside of me only delayed the inevitable return to me. I was the light I’d been searching for. And, as the light, darkness does not walk through me, I walk through it.

ANCHOR TWO

I did tell you there were two. My second focal point, the grounding one, was this.

A few weeks earlier, I stumbled upon a quote. Coincidence? Or, saving grace?

Any time the darkness engulfed me. Any time I felt as though the darkness might swallow me whole. Any time I felt that inner power and determination begin to wane. I would say these words over and over and over. Sometimes I would say them out loud. Most times I would say them in silence. These words began to live and breathe inside me. They kept me going. In some ways, they still do. They reminded me then and even now, that my only job is to walk through this moment.

Then I believed that walking through this moment meant I was one step closer to the light. For too many years, I believed that the light was something outside of me. The journey became this trepidous and insurmountable expedition, from point A (where I am) to some elusive point B.

With over 20 years of hindsight, I now understand the spiritual journey isn’t linear. The journey begins and ends through the zero point of me. We don’t walk through these moments to get to a destination. We walk through these moments to embody our destiny, to return to the light we are.

What was the quote that kept me grounded and tethered to reality?