Hope
There is Hope in the Stories at the Light at the End of the Tunnel
Sometimes, when I get pulled into darkness, I find something to hold onto and can pull myself out. But other times, I feel like I am being sucked into it with no escape. There is always a moment when I’m teetering on the edge of this disaster. I write about darkness because, through the process, I find a way out.
Stories project light into darkness and create a path for hope. The parts of you, inside of you, that are hope, find a way out. I write these words now, and darkness loses its hold.
Stories can tell the truth without dying.
Building a creative practice and writing the truth into a story is the best way I’ve found to live with the darkness and see what lives inside of it — what it wants me to know. Often, it’s something I’ve pushed deep down into it. By turning truth into a character, we can walk through the darkness and carry our wounded parts out with us.
My darkness holds stories that don’t even belong to me. Traumas that have lived on for years become heavier with each generation — stories I carry to lessen the burdens of people I love. Our inner world can become a repository for the untold and often unwanted narratives of others.
We are shaped by the stories we carry, even those that are not our own.
Through storytelling, we can unravel the tangled web of emotions and experiences stored within us. We get a clearer picture of who we are. Many of the stories I write are fiction, but those stories still hold my truth. A truth that is begging to be shared. I first discovered this by reading. When I was a child, books saved me. Through them, I understood there was a way to tell my secret and release my demons.
Storytelling is the hope that carries me through my days. It has healed me. It’s a process that brings joy even to the painful parts of myself. It allows me to go back in time and relive moments and turn them into something I can hold.
Through storytelling, I meet characters who embody lost moments in time. I call this process “Creative Experiencing.” When I enter this realm, the darkness is no longer separate, and pulling it is just part of the whole picture of what it means to be who I am.
Through Creative Experiencing, the darkness offers up the stories we keep hidden. We can travel through time and recover our stories and give them meaning. This is what I call hope.
In what ways do you find hope through your dark moments? Please join our community to follow my series on Creative Experiencing here:
