I think one can lose their way in a month or a week or a day or an hour and that it can take a bit of time before you find your way back to yourself again.

I’ve been a bit lost this week. Since I got back from Kauai things have been murky. Drowning in a sea of monochromatic, bleak February days, I’ve swirled with familiar questions of loneliness and belonging and life path.

I was re-reminded at the start of the week that it is a spiritual principle that after every expansion comes a contraction. So it makes sense that after the huge energy and vision found on my future island home, returning to a darker place would feel compressing and constricting.

Years ago- back when I was closer to the brink of 30 instead of finding 40 just in arm’s reach- I would have wondered what was wrong with me. Would have judged myself for my murky mood.

Would have tried to make myself go do something, cheer myself up, force myself to snap out of it. Not recognizing that those actions would merely be band-aids for something deeper and wouldn’t really solve anything.

Now I know that it is important we allow ourselves to feel the hard things. That often those days where our light feels less bright, where we are more in touch with what is dark and deep and mysterious inside, is simply part of being human and experiencing life.

That there are lessons of spirit to be found in these moments, lessons we usually don’t realize until after the moment has passed.

So for today, I am heading out to the woods for a quick run, because I know that will nourish my soul. And I am remembering that we contract so we can expand, we go inwards so we can grow bigger, we are undone so we can become. And I am practicing extreme self-care with books and words and some comfort food and a refusal to judge what is my very human process.

And I am taking the time to write these words- putting them out into the universe for whoever may wander across this page- as a ray of light for anyone who might be lost in a murky space and getting down on themselves for it. By all means, comfort yourself, nourish yourself, care for yourself and love yourself.

Do whatever you need to find a bit of soft and hope and light. But don’t judge yourself for being human or for feeling the things you feel or for losing your way for a year or a day.

It may be a matter of when, but my fellow brave soul, you will always find your way back to yourself again- always find your way home.