In recovery, I have not become a goody-goody two-shoes or some kind of angelic being by any means. Nor do I hope to. I am who I am and that is especially true since I got clean. Than axiom became truth in a new way for me in my journey to healing from my tbi. That is true for all of us, whether we admit it or not I think.
Without the shadows, the brilliance would be overbearing. Without the shadows, there would be no rest. When we are in the midst of the season of the long dark, it is difficult to remember that it is the forced hibernation, the cold, the absense of sunlight that gives rise to new growth.
To be afraid of the darkness is to fear the shadows within. Those shadows lurk and fester and dodge our every breath. It is the breath of life that heals the shadows. It is by embracing the shadows that we become fully who we are.
When I was using, addiction overtook me. My life revolved around "the getting and using and finding ways to get more" [from Narcotics Anonymous literature] especially if it was yours. When I came into recovery, I had to find a new way to live. Facing the shadows of my past and of the addiction itself enabled me to breathe life into where formerly existed only the festering and fetid odor of death.
When I knew that I had a traumatic brain injury, I had to face myself anew. I had permanent personality changes and permanent disabilities to acknowledge. I learned to embrace myself and who I was in each moment. Clumsiness gave way to purposeful slowness. I began to relax into my newness. I felt myself coming out of the long dark into the brilliant springtime.
In embracing death, I lost my fear. In embracing death, I came more fully into life. When I had to face my own mortality as a recovering adult, I learned what stuff I was made of. I learned the weave of my being. I was able to be still, to be silent, to dare, and to know the taste of mortality.
I was given a precious gift once -- I was present at the transition of an old woman at the nursing home where I once worked. It was like lights going out in her soul. I have never forgotten that.
To know brilliance, we must also know darkness. The depth of my bondage has today become the expanse of my freedom and joy.
-sapphoq
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