In the past, I responded to fear and personal pain with flight.
Sometimes it was a refusal to hash out the hurt someone caused me.
Sometimes it was an actual flight to some faraway place where I could busy myself and nurture other parts of me – adventure, learning, connection, experience – and leave the hurt behind.
This year I keep circling back to this in my mind:
After 42 years of a deep, rich, and love-filled life, what remains hidden? What hurts underneath that is disallowing the next stage of life to be full and bright?
Last week, Nicaragua gifted us a beautiful, blue sky sunshiney day, when from the south, the sky unseasonably grew dark. The winds picked up and the rain fell down in sheets. The hillsides, beaches, roads, and homes – all were soaked. The storm blew through, quick and hard.
However, for a few moments after, dazzling through the black skyline, shone the brightest of rainbows for those who left cover and looked towards the sky. (Two rainbows, if you looked closely).
It made for a spectacular afternoon, the dramatic sunset changes, and then dark beauty as the storm rolled in, and then . . . a grand finale with a rainbow-colored sky.
I couldn’t help but reflect on how changes in our own life are mirrored by the changes we see in nature.
The sway between first soaking up the sun, then fearing the storm, and finally spotting the beauty of a rainbow once the storm has passed.
Everything in and around us changes and moves. The only constant to hold on to is that movement brings change.
We tend to resist change, especially if it is personal, and means confronting painful truths or long-held beliefs.
Deep down within, we understand this to be true – that we resist the changes we need in order to grow. That there are deep parts of ourselves where we bury all the truths we aren’t ready or willing to face.
Ask yourself this:
If connecting with your truth, and finding clarity and peace means sitting in your own savage darkness for a while, would you do it?
Sometimes we refuse to release the very thing we want to let go of. We need to sit with ourselves for a while.
This means allowing painful choices and consequences of our past experiences to run amok in our minds, to let the emotions play out until they exhaust themselves and put themselves to bed.
It might take longer than is comfortable.
Sitting through the inner storm of hard truths, our own fears, our sorrows, our disappointments.
What mistakes did we make? What block do we need to remove from our self-belief if ever we are to experience the highest version of ourselves?
Trust that the rainbow is just on the other side of this.
How light and free and clear we will be.
When we ask ourselves these questions, and answer ourselves openly, without judgment, therein lies the freedom and clarity we seek.
We finally understand how we can fully show up for ourselves and create more peace and meaning in what days we have left to live.
The dark stormy winds are intimidating and uncertain, there is no doubt.
But it is part of the process to trust, and part of the changes we must endure if we ever want to let go, learn, make peace, and grow into the most fulfilling life we can enjoy.
Sitting through our own dark storms will shift us into a place where we can finally and fully experience the colorful brightness of our rainbows, waiting just on the other side.
~ Christy
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Christy Nichols, Executive Leadership & Life Coach | Purposeful Travel Advocate | CEO at Venture Within
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