I think my parents tried to warn me, when I was a kid, that the darkness of the world can get inside you and eat at you.

But their warning focused mostly on not watching scary movies and avoiding drugs, as if darkness can be thwarted by walls I put up to keep it away...

They didn't understand (didn't want to tell me? didn't want to admit to themselves?) that darkness inevitably finds its way into everyone's life at some point or another. Tragedy, loss, and pain are universal experiences, even for the virtuous...

And the longer you avoid darkness, the longer the walls guarding you from it stay up, the more devastating it is to have it come crashing into your life.

You have to know that those walls are temporary - know that darkness will find you - learn how to face it without breaking...

You have to have a light inside yourself - an ability to be still, focus on the moment, find your center. If your light is bright enough, warm enough, you can survive the storm even without walls.

It takes years to build a light like that. Much harder to do at my age...

I'm slowly learning how to build that light now. But I'm years behind in the process. The storm has already taken all of my walls. My shelter is gone.

I wish I had started when I was a kid.

(This thread is about anxiety, mindfulness, and emotional health - very important things I only started learning about a couple of years ago.)