I wish I could just go to sleep and wake up in March.
Looking back, I don’t remember what was so special about March, other than it would be spring and the symbolic end to the dark, cold winter I had suddenly found myself in. Deep down in one of the hidden chambers of my heart had lived the achy awareness that it was a longshot. But at the time, I just couldn’t face that possibility.
Despite my psyche’s best efforts to stay confident and hopeful, that painful reality came to fruition, but my wish to skip right over dealing with it, did not. The holidays were hard, the parties agonizing, so I just flipped into autopilot and went mechanically through the motions of the season.
It wasn’t my first dance with the disappointment of loss and shattered expectations, and as a burgeoning therapist, I was learning how to help others dance with theirs. So often I would hear clients talk about their version of March—a deep desire, driven by deep pain, to somehow skip the dreadful middle part and simply wake up when it was all over.
And they all knew, as much as I did, that this wasn’t how life worked. Despite the eyerolls, heavy sighs, and attempts to bargain with reality, the dance necessitated that at some point, we would have to learn to face, cope with, and carry on from our wounds. And we all knew, at least theoretically, that we would become stronger and more resilient as a result.
With the support of a trusted supervisor, I disengaged the autopilot and showed up for my clients as an authentic human. With the personal details of my story boundaried up, I entered the room as a fellow dancer rather than an instructor, and the magic born from this vulnerable move shaped my clinical and personal development beyond measure.
In true knowledge-made-flesh fashion, I witnessed the healing power of emotional relatability. It wasn’t in the details of the story or in wise words borrowed from sage healers; in fact, it wasn’t about the words at all. Knowing that you are not alone, that others can feel what you feel, and that there is indeed hope for a way through, is the tonic from which resiliency, strength, and fortitude spring.
Your Sacred Invitation is to ground yourself in your ability to persevere. We build long-term strength and endurance, the elemental energies of earth and the winter season, by weathering the storms we encounter, especially when we choose to ride them out with others who have persevered through those dark nights to emerge with the wisdom of resiliency.