Whispers of Resilience
“Darkness is a friend of ours, night is an ally… We grow accustomed to the Dark — When light is put away…”
Emily Dickinson opens We Grow Accustomed to the Dark with this gentle assertion: when the familiar light of day is gone, we learn — slowly, stumblingly — to see in the new darkness. This is the way of resilience: not avoiding darkness, but learning to live through it, to feel it, and to find the unseen paths illuminated within it.
The Unseen Gift in Hard Times
Hardship often feels like something to escape. Yet, as Dickinson says, there’s a moment of adjustment:
“A Moment — We uncertain step / For newness of the night — Then — fit our Vision to the Dark — And meet the Road — erect —”
Here is the turning point: the hesitation, the uncertainty, then the uprighting, the meeting of the way forward. Pain isn’t the end — it is the slope that leads upward, if we stay awake to it.
Maria Popova, in her essays like A Responsibility to Light, reminds us that during dark times we are invited to feel all the hard things — fear, loss, confusion — and then focus. It’s in the territory of fracture that new light can emerge, that new layers of ourselves wake:
“Some of our dormant multitudes come awake … slowly and lazily over years of personal development. Others leap into being with the jolt of an alarm … always transformational.”
Resilience = Becoming
Resilience isn’t bouncing back to who we were before; it’s growing into something more alive, more flexible, more embodied. Dickinson’s poem continues:
“The Bravest — grope a little / And sometimes hit a Tree / Directly in the Forehead / But as they learn to see ”
We all hit trees. We walk into obstacles. We misstep. But that's part of the journey. Learning to see isn’t tidy. It’s gritty, slow. It’s learning to carry darkness without shutting down — to be present to pain and also to newness, to courage, to tenderness.
Popova’s words echo this: presence and resilience require letting things break open. They require living with uncertainty. As she reflects, presence is often more rewarding than productivity — because presence asks us to stay, to bear witness to what is, rather than rushing toward what we want or expect.
From Darkness to Flourishing
How might we live such resilience? How might we choose to grow rather than simply survive?
Befriend your darkness: allow space to grieve, to feel lost, rather than pushing it away.
Practice embodied presence: somatic awareness, breath, quietness, movement — noticing where your body holds tension, fear, grief.
Accept the messiness: resilience is not perfection. It’s getting up when we fall, speaking our truth after silence, letting compassion guide us through shame.
Hold hope loosely: we don’t have to have all the answers. We don’t need to force clarity. Sometimes purpose emerges out of patience, tending, trust.
Invitation
If you’re here — in a season of darkness or growth — may you remember that you are not dimmed by your shadow, but illumined by it. Your own resilience, your own becoming, is the star that shines brightest because of the dark around you.
Let each moment of struggle be a chance to grow into something more alive, more fully you.
