Light Was All I Ever Was

    I recognize yesterday's imagery was fairly disturbing, but it feels like an accurate representation of how it has felt to be totally immersed and mired in ones own past suffering. I could choose to think about thousands of other positive things, but what I return to is the thick, sucking mud. That's the affect trauma has on our psyche. All the amazing parts of my life, at these times, practically cease to exist. But I am continuing to seek ways to overcome this patterning.
    The odds have always seemed to be stacked against me, but I have proven to myself and others that I can come out winning anyway. I finished the Appalachian Trail while barely able to sleep the whole time and while others saw me as incompetent. I've had trauma related mental illness and learning challenges but I was able to improve my grades enough to not only land on the honor roll, but I was also able to join the National Honor Society in high school. In college I even started acing physics tests with relative ease. I may seem small and therefore weak, and I may be traumatized and therefore always in an uphill battle, but my willpower has always been strong enough to counter my physical and mental limits.

'Light Was All I Ever Was'

My past teaches me
where I perceive my limits to be.
My past may hold all the pain and grief and questions...
but what if it also holds the key to my peace and joy?
What if it also holds all the answers?

What I endured
showed me my strength.
What I endured
showed me my power.
What I endured
showed me my invincible light.

I learned I was never the mud I was dragged through.
I learned that my light was so big
it would always shine through.
I learned that my light was there before the trauma
and that my light was there after the trauma;
that I remained unchanged in my essence.
I remained unchanged in my core.
And I shall remain unchained from my bondage to trauma.
For light was all I ever was
and light is all I'll ever be.