The Return of Hope.
THE STORY – On Finding Light in the Darkness.
Past me used to get twitchy when the world went dark.
Trying to fix, to mend, to adjust. If that didn’t work, she’d begin to push the darkness away, to resist it, to ignore it. She’d try and hold it all in, keep it together.
Stay in control.
Now me is sitting on the sofa, slowly sipping a coffee flavoured with a touch of wild orange oil, wrapped in a blanket, with a cat on my lap, staring into the void.
Into the sadness. The anger. The disappointment.
Dancing with the Darkness from the safety of the sofa cushions, feeling her wrap around me like a heavy garment, cold at first touch, but somehow her presence becomes warming, deep and profound.
I ask her to sit down with me, and she does. I look into the eyes of a deeply sad, but just as deeply beautiful woman. She isn’t as fragile as one may belief. In her tear-filled eyes lies a strength, and that very strength is what I now see and harvest, as I let her in. There’s liberation in allowing her to sit with me here on the sofa, without trying to look away or run from her as if she was the enemy of my joy.
For I now know that she isn’t – but my escape from her is.
Since losing my first long-awaited pregnancy last summer – that time when I found myself in the emergency room at midnight, seeing my whole world crash in front of my eyes – I had not really dared to let hope in.
Until this past week.
As if I had needed 12 months to pass without feeling too deeply into the pain, grief and trauma of last summer, I dipped my toes into it all when I was surrounded by the lush forests of Swedish Dalarna, where I attended a yoga retreat in mid September.
For the first time I touched upon the pain and the sadness inside of me with a group of wonderful women as witnesses. The tears that I cried on those days were a liberation, and being seen in this vulnerable state was, too.
And as I opened my heart for the pain, hope, too, returned.
I could feel her rise within me like the morning sun after months of foggy numbness. I didn’t want to feel hope, for I was too afraid of disappointment. A fear I am now facing as I sit here on the sofa, for the first time feeling grief again as my womb is shedding this past cycle’s hope.
I was afraid of feeling.
So I for months I chose to go numb. To not feel hope, and to not feel sadness at the end and beginning of each cycle that I passed through. I chose to push any notion of disappointment away, trying to see myself as being “over it”, focusing on other dreams and visions for this life. I hadn’t realised that in the process I deepened the loss of connection to my body, the dissociation that happened in the hospital and that had begun to happen even way before then.
Now I am reclaiming it.
And with that comes facing the darkness. She sits on the sofa with me still. Like the black cat on my lap, she isn’t malevolent like I feared she would be.
She’s a companion.
She looks up at me, wise. And hopeful. For she, in her darkest core, holds the light of potential.
I reach out, and as our fingers touch, her spark lights up the spark in me again, and the flame of hope, of trust, of becoming is alit again – and I finally see that it needed the darkness to reignite.
With regard to this topic, I have carried an idea around with me for a while that I would like to share with you today – and I would love to hear if it resonates with you, for then I will see to carry it forward:
Becoming Mothers
I am seeking to gather those who are mothers to angel babies, to those whose visit here was short – no matter how short.
I am seeking mothers who are on the journey of healing from the loss of their pregnancies, for this journey can be a lonely one – but it doesn’t have to be.
So many I’ve spoken to shared their stories, and so many are stories of hope and of love and of transformation.
At first I thought I was alone, before I learned the power of sharing the grief and the pain with those who know what it feels like.
We can hold each other on the journey back to the surface.
We can carry each other through the tears.
It’s not easy and it’s not talked about enough. So I want to create a space where we can talk. Come together. Heal together. And find ways together to return to our bodies and our dream of motherhood, with less fear and shame and stigma.
If you feel that’s you, please get in touch. ❤️
Much love,
Klara