11/08/2026
Some seasons of life feel darker than we expected.
Recently, I sat with a young man in fresh grief.
He was already living through a season he anticipated would be one of the hardest of his life when he learned that a close family member had died unexpectedly—extremely unexpectedly.
What do you tell someone when their dark night becomes their darkest night?
Grief. Anxiety. Doubt. Uncertainty. The parts of ourselves we wish we could simply turn off.
But healing doesn't always begin when the darkness disappears.
I told him the truth.
Every cell in me wanted to make the situation OK. To find the right words. To somehow make this make sense.
But he deserved the truth.
And the truth was that life would never be OK in the same way again.
The only way through the pain was with the pain.
He told me that all he could feel was impossible.
So I told him that we would sit there—together, broken on the floor—and explore what our hands looked like during impossible. How visual perception changes during impossible. What water tastes like when impossible is all we feel.
Not because those things would fix it.
But because even in the middle of impossible, there is still a world to experience.
George Fox, one of the founders of the Religious Society of Friends, wrote in his Journal in 1647:
“I saw, also, that there was an ocean of darkness and death; but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness.”
I love this image because it doesn't ask us to pretend the darkness isn't there, or that the darkness isn't enormous and all encompassing.
It doesn't minimize grief. It doesn't promise that everything will be OK.
It simply reminds us that darkness can be real without being the whole story.
I don't believe you have to become free of anxiety, grief, doubt, or difficult thoughts before you can begin moving toward the life you care about.
Sometimes the work is learning to make room for what is here—and finding the freedom to keep moving toward what matters.
Even when what matters feels impossibly far away.
You don't have to wait until you feel ready.
Come as you are. Leave more yourself.
— Project Ahari
