embracing the darkness
We all get lost in the darkness sometimes. Feeling unsure. Scared. Not good enough. The darkness for me shows up in the times when my life is not where I want it to be. When I make decisions that I am not happy with. When nothing seems to be going right. And I feel like a failure. That I did something wrong. That I’m just not good enough. I doubt everything. I beat myself up for not having all the right answers. For not making the right choices. For not being in the perfect place right now. For not having it all together today. I feel like a failure because I am not who I want to be in this moment. I’m not living in the the body I really want. I lose my temper with my kids. The house is not perfectly organized and spotless at all times. Business behind the scenes can be chaotic and scattered. Family photos don’t always get edited right away. Or sometimes not at all. And I don’t want anyone to see me this way. Filled with uncertainty. Doubt. Darkness.
When I look back at those moments when I felt like everything was going wrong. When I felt like a giant failure. I now know that they were all meant to happen. To teach me. To move me forward. These moments of darkness and uncertainty are exactly where I needed to be. And now I know that in each one of these moments when I feel like less. Broken. Or not good enough, I remind myself of this…
There are no failures. Only learnings.
{Read that again. And believe it.}
I have removed the word “failure” from my vocabulary. Because I don’t believe in failures. Not anymore. I believe in life lessons. I believe in learning and growing and moving forward. And being exactly where I am supposed to be. Building upon the things that I am experiencing. Even in the darkness. Taking the next step. Moving forward. And getting there because I learned something from what I am experiencing.
Each time I feel like less, feel like a failure, I know that I am actually being given more. More opportunities to learn. To see so clearly what I really do want in my life. Who I want to be. Who I don’t want to be. What I want from my business. What I don’t want my business to become. What kind of mom I so clearly do not want to be. And the mom I know I am. The way that I want to spend my days. And what I don’t want to waste my time doing anymore. These are all lessons I am learning from the darkness. So how could I ever see it as a failure when I learn so much about myself in these moments of darkness? Learnings that are building a better, happier and more authentic me.
I am learning to let go. To embrace the darkness. And all that it is teaching me. How will I ever continue to grow if I never make mistakes? If I never stumble and fall? Then I cannot pick myself back up, brush myself off and keep going forward with a stronger understanding of where I am headed. With more purpose and passion than I had before I stumbled. With a clearer vision. With bigger dreams and more determination than ever before.
Out of the darkness I know that I am growing, evolving, changing, living, learning, improving. every single day. I am okay right where I am. Embracing this moment. And all that I am learning from it.
What have you learned about yourself in the darkness?
Tracy Larsen has never followed the rules or colored in the lines. In her former life (before becoming addicted to the camera) she was the sports nutritionist for the NBA Dallas Mavericks. She is now a photographer seeking to tell stories with her camera. Wanting to hold onto little bits + pieces of time by documenting her life in sunny South Florida that includes husband Mark and their two little boys, Quinn and Tate. She is on a journey to live, learn and photograph it all which she writes about on her personal journal, the finding of me. Peek at her photography + future creative ventures on tracyslarsen.
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