I’ve been meaning to write this for four months now. But honestly, it’s perfect that I waited.

I’ve been going through the painful exit of of an unhealthy marriage. I’ve allowed myself my time in victimhood. I’ve allowed myself time in cognitive dissonance. I’ve allowed myself time to grieve what I had, what I thought I had, what I never really had, and what I accepted for so long. I’ve celebrated my resilience, my understanding of all the facets of the situation, my willingness to love and forgive, and how I’ve moved through choices or actions I never thought I’d have the courage to do.

But beyond me, what’s also been of note is a mirror of darkness has happened to us all these last few months.

We’ve all been collective witness to the crimes against humanity at multiple points in the grid of the world. Sadly, we know this happens all the time, but so much recently has been front and center for us all to take in and bare.

At this moment, I’m honestly in such a tremendously light space. I’ve been throwing myself into self nourishment and supportive community. To now have a little breathing room to turn my head around and look back over my shoulder at the road I walked, it feels like a miracle. I realize, no longer with sadness or pride, that for the last ten years or so of my life, I have become a master at finding the light in dark.

This has been my conclusion of “spiritual poverty” in my mind, this vestige of an era of conscious development where we subscribe to the experience of suffering as being a badge of honor, a necessity to our progress, a well-worn path we must walk stoically, passively even, for the emergence of our compassionate and humble self.

I think it was all necessary, for as long as I made it necessary.

I also feel fewer and fewer people will have to experience this deeply in order to garner the compassion, humility, or sincerity necessary for a devotional life. Because there’s another way, not a bypass per se, but an understanding that trumps needing to suffer so much. It’s the deep path of Bhakti, Love, but not in the way we traditionally think of like Mother Teresa or Ghandi selflessly giving to a cause or other people every waking moment.

For the last three years, I have slowly come to realize, practice, and embody that tremendous self nourishment + honoring is the most compassionate thing to do and experience.

We cannot offer our best selves, brimming with joy, love, patience, or wisdom to those we love or the world if we do not care for our individual self, to honor ourselves first as children of God—who’s birthright is joy, play, curiosity, dancing, singing, laughing, enjoying the world, exploring the world, engaging in connection, being at ease in our bodies, moving our bodies, and feeling utterly safe, held, in everything we experience internally. This is a gift we can consciously give ourselves which flows like a gentle river to everyone we encounter.

I had to understand such depths of darkness and self subscribed suffering (playing small, pardoning others for cruelty, not practicing firm boundaries, loosing myself in the role of wife and mother, self sacrifice as “necessity”) in order to see the vital value of the light… Literally, the “lightness” with which we can respond to all aspects of life, the safety we can provide ourselves to feel, the ease with which we can choose to love or connect with someone, and the simple autonomy to know our heart is solely ours and that we get to choose to share it with whomever or whatever we desire.

So now I say, the most powerful thing I can do as an individual when I see darkness operating outside of myself is to see it as a reminder to fiercely live in the force of my own light.

For example:

I see children being ripped from their families, so I vow to protect the innocence of my own children even more by engaging in play and carefully choosing environments or people that also protect their innocence.

I see women being ravaged and raped for the spoil of war, so I vow to share only helpful systems/thoughts that bring forth mutual respect between the sexes, I treat other women with reverence as an act of the Divine sisterhood, and I firm up my personal boundaries while keeping my heart open to all in my life.

The message has and always will be that darkness cannot defeat darkness, only light can, and the light has to be so strong it cuts through the darkness and blinds anyone who dare to see it all unfold as life in front of their eyes.

Simply enough, what makes lightness strong is the sincerity with which you surrender to it! Then as you feel into the surrender you move and dance with it more and more in your daily life. The more we choose lightness, the greater our capacity to hold it in our bodies! It’s remarkable the truly expansive quality of lightness.

To me, this is why each of us can be a living legacy of love.

To get completely meta here on this last note, if we can learn to deeply love and trust ourselves to the depths we love and trust God, then we can find ourselves in a space to honestly thank darkness for its inherent power to simply remind us how powerful light truly is.

Love, Ash