Returning to the World

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I felt summer approaching in my body before I could see it arrive in the absence of rain and clouds outside my windows. The transition into summer is moody in Puget Sound.

There is a loosening happening inside of me finally that feels like expelled weight, a slow exhale after years of holding my breath so tightly that I forgot what it felt like to breathe from deep inside of myself. I find myself thinking about Lake Chapman and the quiet rhythm of water against a kayak, sitting around campfires with people I love, the smell of pine warming in the afternoon sun, conversations that drift without any undercurrent or agenda, and the simple act of existing in the world.

For the first time in a long time, I am starting to strengthen even more. While that statement sounds ordinary as I type it, the truth is, it has taken years to arrive here right now. The last five years changed me in ways I am only now beginning to understand on a deeper, more spiritual level.

In October 2020, I underwent surgery that required implants to reconstruct damage left over from childhood injuries and triggered an inflammation disorder that introduced me to a level of chronic pain I had never known. Pain became a climate system inside my body. It settled into my days and nights. It altered my choices and my thinking. It narrowed my world. There were mornings when simply getting out of bed felt like a negotiation between determination and giving up.

My older brother died in 2021, two days before my birthday. I tore my right meniscus requiring knee surgery in 2023. My father died at the end of 2024. I type those sentences plainly because that is how loss hits, without announcements, no preparation, and without any regard for how much you are already carrying. Life itself has no mindfullness.

Alongside that physical pain came a grief that embedded itself into me like a strange creature. Grief does not take form in any predictable way. It stripped so much from me, even my own tears. It curled itself around my ankles and followed me from room to room. It settled into my nervous system and became indistinguishable from my own thoughts. Sometimes grief convinces you that retreat is wisdom, when it is actually self-isolation.

Yet, the aloneness was necessary. It was healing me by forcing me to face my own shadows, and let me tell you something about shadow work. When you slay shadows, sometimes there are more shadows standing behind it. Yeah, shadows can come in ranks. Be prepared for that.

And some of my solitude I understand as simply survival in the face of dark circumstances that would have leveled anyone. There are choices I made during those years that were neglectful toward my own body because the pain was easier to endure than the effort required to fight against it. There were days when depression pulled me under and I did not resist as fiercely as I could have. I curled inward. I isolated. I withdrew from life in ways that felt protective but ultimately left me smaller than my purpose, while oddly, manifesting it.

The darkness taught me many things. But it also demanded a cost, and pulled me into harsh realizations that changed me permanently.

As I sit here now, I find myself reflecting on the people, ideas, and environments I allowed access to my time and energy. I think about the relationships that depleted me rather than nourished me. I think about the spaces where I handed over pieces of myself to individuals who had not earned those parts of me.

One of the most important lessons of my life has been the understanding that individuation is not selfishness, and oneness concepts are a trap.

The healthiest people I know do not disappear into groups. They are the ones who remain connected to themselves even while participating in community — willing to pivot as soon as their boundaries are disrespected. They know where they end and where others begin. They know how to say no. They know how to protect their minds from ideologies, movements, and personalities who use psychological warfare for personal gain.

I emerged from these years having learned that my sensing is every bit as acute as I always believed it was. The problem was never my perception. It was my willingness to doubt it. Again and again I ignored my own instincts because I wanted to be fair, supportive, and open-minded. There is nothing wrong with wanting to believe the best about people. The mistake is continuing to believe it after they have shown you otherwise.

As my nervous system begins to settle, I can see those patterns more clearly now. The fog of grief has started to lift. The cortisol spikes that became so familiar over the last several years are becoming less frequent. I can feel the difference in my body. I can feel the difference in my thoughts.

Recently I removed a startling number of social media apps from my phone. It felt strangely ceremonial, as though I were clearing rooms inside a house I intend to live in for a very long time. I disconnected my energy from people behaving in ways that felt alarming, manipulative, or fundamentally dishonest. My attention has become precious to me. I want to spend it wisely.

I still enjoy meaningful engagement in places that matter and feel intentional. These places that feel connected to the work I am here to do. But I no longer feel obligated to stand in every crowded room or participate in every conversation. I need a season of quiet, slow living and light walking.

Peace has become more valuable than visibility. Perhaps that is part of aging, and healing. Or maybe it is simply the reward for surviving enough chaos to finally demand the right to your own calm. The beautiful thing about darkness is that it does eventually teach us.

When you spend enough time inside a lightless cave, you become intimately familiar with the texture of the walls. You learn where the dangerous sections are, how to navigate them, and you develop strengths that would never have emerged in easier conditions.

The danger comes when you recognize the structure is collapsing and yet refuse to leave. There is a point where the lessons have been learned and the darkness becomes a habit instead of a teacher. I have reached that point. The knowledge, the scars, the understanding, the growth all remains. But now I must return to the full essence of my own work.

The muscles feel weak at first. My steps feel slower than they once did. I find myself approaching life carefully, almost like a hiker returning to the trail after a long injury. I stay on the low grounds. I choose calm waters. I rebuild my stamina. I remind myself that not every season is meant for switchbacks and rapids.

Some seasons are meant for restoration. This summer feels like one of those seasons.

I am making plans to go with my family to camp and kayak beneath open night skies. I want to sit beside the water and watch clouds move across mountain ridges, paused directly in that moment, with my body existing in the world rather than fighting against it, immersed fully in the simple privilege of being alive.

I also want to celebrate what has emerged from these past few difficult years.

Anatomy of the Dark Empath is finished and in the production line with my editor. There were moments when I doubted I would ever complete another major project and the combination of grief, pain, inflammation, and exhaustion convinced me that my creative life had narrowed permanently. It had not. It had simply gone underground, the way roots do in winter, deepening in the dark before anything visible grows.

If you are waiting for its release, follow along at ANATOMY OF THE DARK EMPATH on Substack. While you wait, I have been assembling reading lists and recommendations for those interested in dark psychology, trauma, manipulation, and recovery. Every book becomes another stepping stone across a river someone else has already crossed.

As I look toward the future, I find myself thinking more and more about the legacy I am building.

Ten years from now, I will look back on this season and recognize it as a turning point. I will see it as another moment I stepped out of survival mode and began living again. The season I integrated more shadows. The season I continued nourishing my life even when nourishment felt like a foreign language.

Everything in life exists in cycles. The losses, grief, pain, confusion, healing, joy, and the balanced return to ourselves. And inside that space lives expansion.

Because someday all of this will be gone. My body will return to the soil. My bones will become dust. The campsites will outlast me. The lakes will continue reflecting the sky. The seasons will continue turning without me in them.

What remains will be the stories. The books and essays. The traces left behind by a life honestly examined. The little library that holds our difficult experiences may be the closest thing any of us come to immortality. And if that is true, then I want to leave behind something worthy of the years it cost to learn all of this.

For the ones in their own cave right now — in their own long season of grief and restoration — the Survivor Healing Bookshelf holds the books that kept me company in the dark. And the Spiritual Awakening Reads list holds the ones that helped me remember there was a world worth returning to.

I have begun again and again. And I am beginning again. Again.🙃

— Vennie

If this resonated, come check out my Substack publications. That’s where the conversation continues.

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