Light

 "We have access to more information than ever before - we're struggling more. We don't talk about what gets in the way."

Every time I lift Peanut into the pool, she has this same apprehensive look on her face.

Uncertainity.

She can touch. This year the water is waist deep for her.

But she remembers. There was a time when she couldn't. A time when the water was greater than she was. Taller. Bigger. Overwhelming.

She's unsure.

She's afraid.

I'm so incredibly careful with how I approach this.

Because you see, we begin when we are small able to articulate so easily what we are afraid of.

We tell everyone about the water that might get in our noses or mouths, the monsters that may lie under the bed, the scary movie scene that may come true.

But at some point, we begin to think those worries aren't valid.

We don't quit having fears - we just quit giving them a voice.

We become these people who feel there is something wrong with having fears. Doubts. Uncertainties.

By not giving these fears a voice, we let them grow in the darkness.

They take hold.

So I tell Peanut, "Yes, it's scary." I reflect what she says to me. I validate her feelings.

And we bring those fears into the LIGHT.

One of the hardest things for me in my health journey has been to voice my fears. To say things I think make me sound either childish or crazy.

But not saying them, doesn't make them not exist.

I've carved out space safes to share them. People who have earned the right to hear my story.

And I've brought those fears into LIGHT.

The very act of shining light onto something dark changes it.

Makes it less scary.

Mama Warriors, I encourage you to do two things. As you listen to the fears of your littles, I urge you to *just* hear them. Try to validate that they exist - for them, they are very real.

Be LIGHT where those fears are spread into the open.

And, find LIGHT to shed on your fears.

We all carry them.........don't hide them in darkness to fester and grow.

Share them in the LIGHT so that they gain perspective.

Find the people that have earned the right to hear your story and tell it. Over and over.

Until the darkness seems doable.

Until LIGHT wins.

Published May 2019