Topic: Shame
Sitting is not more important than doing. It is a very necessary component, however, to doing. As we sit in the darkness, we gain insight.
We also need to become comfortable in keeping a place to return to, to sit again and again, when we need the serenity of darkness. Yes, serenity! It truly becomes a place of serenity if we make friends with darkness. However, not as an exclusive friend. Just an important friend among many places in our lives.
It is in the darkness that we learn to dig deep, so we can return to the light with renewed energy. Yet only if we remember that sitting is just a temporary condition.
In the type of advocacy work that I do, I find that the most important thing--sometimes the only thing--that I need to say to most survivors of sexual and domestic abuse is that there is light outside the darkness. Even if that light does not come from the same sources that it once came.
