They tell you to be the light.
To stay soft.
To radiate.
To shine.
But no one warns you that to shine authentically—
you have to walk straight into the dark first.
Not tiptoe. Not peek. Not visit.
Descend.
And that’s what I’ve been doing.
Not spiraling.
Not lost.
Descending—with purpose.
Some days it feels like falling apart.
But I know now, this is initiation.
Because real healing doesn’t come from bypassing the rage,
or tidying up the grief
before anyone can see it.
It comes from burning.
From letting the fire touch the parts you’ve tried to keep neat and palatable.
From sitting eye to eye with your shame
and refusing to flinch.
We weren’t meant to just light up rooms.
We were meant to carry the flame
through the hollows, the hauntings, the hurt—
and come back changed.
Persephone wasn’t stolen.
She chose to descend.
And I understand her now.
She didn’t become Queen of the Underworld because she avoided it.
She ruled because she learned to walk both realms.
To love both her softness and her shadow.
To return, not in pieces—but in power.
I used to think my darkness disqualified me.
That the anger made me unworthy.
That the days I couldn’t function made me a fraud.
Now I see it differently:
This pain is a rite.
This unraveling is sacred.
This grief? This rage?
They are part of the curriculum.
If I’m ever going to guide others toward healing,
it won’t be with tidy words.
It’ll be with the truth.
The kind you earn by facing your own ghosts.
By choosing not to stay in the fire—
but to rise from it, carrying its heat.
So if you’re breaking down,
unraveling,
burning in the truth of your own becoming—
Don’t run.
Don’t numb.
Don’t try to shine your way out too soon.
You're not broken.
You're being initiated.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
💌 Note to the Reader:
If you’ve been feeling the pull downward—
into grief, into rage, into the parts of yourself you’ve been taught to hide—
this is your permission slip.
Go there.
This isn’t you falling apart.
This is you shedding what was never meant to stay.
This is soul work.
Shadow work.
Sacred work.
Let it burn.
Let it unravel.
Let it show you what still hurts so you can heal it for real this time.
You are not too much.
You are not broken.
You are not behind.
You’re being forged.
And when you rise—because you will—
you’ll rise whole.
You’ll rise rooted.
You’ll rise ready to carry the flame—not just the light.
Plunge deep.
You are strong enough to face it.
And you are worthy enough to come back from it whole.
Unfiltered. Raw. Me.
~Cassandra