COVID – My Magic Dark

This week has been a challenging one for me. Writing that feels a bit understated…but how else does one say it – perhaps “week from hell” sums it up better. Yes, that feels right.

I had my turn with COVID-19 and yes it was every bit as awful as I’d heard through the media and grapevine. The virus in and of itself wasn’t fun…but in actuality – it was more the emotional, deeper things that it stirred up that were shockingly pivotal for me. Deeply moving; unexpectedly so.

This marked the first time since…well…actually, ever in my life that I have been physically alone while being very ill. Panic set in – at least internally. Physically I went through all the “right” motions for nursing oneself back to health, but emotionally I felt like a fish out of water.

Adult Rational Capable Steph ---> Meet ----> Scared Little Girl Steph – it’s been a while!

Over the past few years, I have been on a path of self-learning and on a “journey” (I don’t love how cliché that sounds) toward selflove. This path has led me to the TBM* (To Be Magnetic) process and attempting through guided self-hypnosis practices, meditation, and deep inner diving to try to face and integrate pasts trauma by re-programming affected neural pathways, subconscious beliefs and thought patterns.

If these concepts sound a bit woo woo I get it…they did to me as well until I started feeling a dramatic shift in my emotional well-being, self-talk and felt incredible energetic release of unknowingly stored “trauma” experiences in my body. These practices have now become my saving Grace and lifeline.

I put “trauma” in quotations not to downplay this word or what it represents but because, as I learned from a wise therapist once, trauma can be anything – if you experience something and it draws an emotional response that feels traumatic, intense, invokes a feeling beyond that moment and holds on – that is a trauma FOR YOU.

I have heard trauma described as a specific energetic frequency in the body, held there; until released/healed it remains. There are undoubtedly many definitions; for me I believe it is all these things – I have felt trauma physically, emotionally, energetically, and intuitively. I do think what one person experiences as a “trauma” may not affect another the same way – neither to be downplayed; everyone is an individual and walks their own path.

The feverish, delirious aloneness I experienced in that first 24 hours with COVID drew up to the surface for me some of those “trauma” bits that perhaps I hadn’t realized I’d housed somewhere in my body still…just waiting to be triggered. “Oh HI”.

It kind of felt a little like this –

Positive Test…symptoms hit like a freight train…

Little Girl Steph heard: “You’re alone, you always have been, you chose to live your life this way and here you are – this is your fault. Feeling unsafe is your fault. No one’s coming to save you, rescue you - you’re not safe, not worthy of feeling safe. YOU ARE NOT WORTHY of safety, love, compassion or care. You are Alone. You caused your own suffering."

Contrasted with the present day Adult Steph that of course has worked through elements of this learned voice and healed enough to rationally know all of the above is false (at least she’s learning to).

Guess who won…in that vulnerable moment? Ya.

Wow. And the tears came. And they came...

A vulnerable moment…darkness...shakily sitting knees to chest…cool shower raining down on my body…mixing with my fevered tears…sobbing to release.... I surrender, I surrender.

The beauty of the dark.

The beauty of what Lacy of TBM calls Magic Dark moments; the delicate transition one goes through from difficult, painful dark moments to an incredibly expansive rise. A rite of passage toward an emotionally more evolved Self.

Without realizing it - Adult Steph answered her cry for help . Wrapped her arms around her, held her and let her cry. Sobbing. She tucked her into bed, she rubbed her head, she gave her medicine and told her it would be okay. Told her she was safe. She told her she loved her and would protect her…

And in that moment - a long lost need was met, a deep wound healed. An old one, but one that needed not be overlooked. Magic in the darkness.

The little child who sought safety and love back when...she still lives in me; that night she felt safe, heard, and seen – by the most important person she needed to feel it from and for that…I am grateful.

Thank you so much for reading.

Much love & light,

SJ