Spark: When I Got My Light Back

How throwing all the rocks into the vast embrace of mother ocean released the pain... and opened up space in the darkness for my inner light to flicker again.

These pictures are from a solo trip I took to Trinidad beach on the Nor Cal coast two years ago this week. As they popped up in my memories, they swept me up into a super reflecty headspace, helping me pull together a lot of pieces in my story, from my past as well as from the past couple of years, that I’m sensing it’s time for me to make known. I’ve hidden myself away quite a bit these last couple of years, and I want to begin re-emerging and sharing myself and my story with anyone who wants to hear it, maybe needs to hear it, or just enjoys keeping up with me in general. I’ve always loved to write, and have always lived with a pretty open posture, enjoying the sharing of life and experiences and ideas with any and everyone. If you’re like me, I just love knowing people’s stories. I feel honored to know people, to be invited into people’s lives and experiences. When I hear others stories, I always learn something about the world, and often times something about myself. I also very often find myself in others stories, and find myself feeling less alone and weird by getting to know others (“WHAAAA?, so-and-so thinks that too?!!!” Haha.) Anyway, this blog is a space for me to begin a regular practice of writing and sharing myself, my story, my heart, my ideas and experiences like this for anyone interested. If you’ve got a few minutes and want to go on the journey with me, grab your favorite snack and get cozy. 

(Trigger warning: contains mention of childhood sexual abuse.)

This trip was a spark for me, a spark in my darkest hour.

Sparks can play a part in both the burning down of things that need to be done away with, as well as the imagining and creation of new things that need to come. This trip was a spark for both of these types of events in my journey. 

“Let it burn.”

I’ve been reading through Glennon Doyle’s “Untamed” recently. (Can’t. Put. It. Down - obviously.) Glennon regularly draws upon the metaphor of letting the things burn down that have been in place in our lives and have power, sway and control over us - the forms, structures, rules, expectations, or the “memos” as she calls them, that are designed to keep us caged and quiet.

My trip provided the spark that has allowed me to burn down a lot of shit these past two years. 

I went on the trip because I was in the most broken, depressed state of my entire life. I couldn’t carry on. My kids would find me collapsed on the kitchen floor in tears of overwhelm and pain. I was carrying such immense pain, from so many different angles… I just had to “go.” I had to get away. I had to do something to take care of myself and figure out how to release the pain (and anger) my body was holding. 

I had to go to the beach - my refuge. 

In June of 2020, just over six months before the trip, came the lynchpin of my grand undoing. A series of circumstances came together -- some of them culminating over years of deep inner work and reflection, and some of them things I was going through in that particular moment - to open up my mind and body and reveal to me the sexual abuse I had endured as a young child. As is so often the case with childhood trauma, I’d lived my entire adult life not recalling what had happened to me. My avalanche, my landslide moment of awakening came as I collapsed off of the couch, onto the living room floor, and into the safe arms of two of my most cherished friends and lifelong mentors - which was one of those significant pieces that came together at the right moment. Right place. Right time. In the safety of the right people. These dear friends were my trauma sherpas - both (tragically) familiar with the path that lay before me and able to gently and lovingly help me know what the hell I was supposed to do, where to start and some possible first steps to take. 

While I’m not yet ready to name my abuser publicly, though that day of reckoning will come as well, as is tragically and often the case, this person was incredibly close to me. Family. Supposed to be one of my safe people. I was little. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t tell my parents. I didn’t tell anyone.

To draw upon Glennon’s language, my “memo” was to protect this person. That was our unspoken family system. Religious system. This, of course, is how abuse happens in families and religious systems. People in power are protected. Those are the rules. And if anyone steps out of line with that, there will be consequences. 

Fear. Manipulation. Shame. These are our cages.

Little Jonathan was a good boy. Super sweet and kind. I didn’t get in much trouble. I did what I was told. I followed the rules. I was scared to do any different. And my abuser knew this, and used it to their advantage. 

Months of intense EMDR therapy followed my landslide moment. These sessions, multiple times a week, provided devastating clarity. Gut-wrenching insight. 

Truth. 

The therapy brought about truth. Truer truth than any other truth I’d had before.

I was making sense to myself for the first time. I began to understand all that was taken from little Jonathan. My innocence. My safety. My voice. 

I understood for the first time why I hated my name growing up. Jonathan. I ran from it. I became Jon. Jon sounded strong. I wanted to seem strong. Because I didn’t feel strong. Truth be told, until I entered into these depths of my soul at 36 years old, I never felt like a grown up person. Still that little boy - just in a grown-up body. I put Jonathan away, because I had to survive. Crazy how our brains can do that. 

Survive I did. I found drugs that helped with the pain and void of self-worth and confidence. Mine were achievement and religion. (I tried using the sports drug too - with much more mixed results, haha). These were super “safe” drugs, because no one could’ve ever guessed that’s what they were (not even me). I was able to use these drugs to gain people’s admiration and even feel good about myself here and there. I was a do-gooder, and even inspired others at do-good-ing.

But inside I was always terrified. I felt weak. I couldn’t stand up to bullies, or for justice, especially for myself, but oftentimes even on account of others. 

I also learned to hide. To hide myself. My thoughts. My ideas. My opinions. What I became a master at was checking the temperature, reading the situation, and acting in a way that would be the most pleasing in the given environment. I was a delight for most people to be around, but my insides were always in turmoil. 

While coming to this new found self-discovery and self-understanding, this kind of truth, in my early months of therapy and inner work in 2020 held so much potential for new life, new growth and freedom, it also completely broke me. It brought on what I can only describe as a lifetime of grief and pain I had stored up, and no way to access prior to this point. 

I couldn’t carry on. I couldn’t function. To make matters even worse, In the midst of the pain and despair I was let go from my job. And I also, at this time, wasn’t telling very many people my story. I was in the torture of trying to keep my pain in for fear of how it would hurt the others around me. 

That’s what I brought with me to the beach two years ago. 

I needed the beach because I knew the ocean had a large enough capacity to take on all I had to spew. I needed her waves. I needed her rocks to throw. 

So many rocks.

My God. 

I threw all the rocks. I did all the screaming, cursing. All the crying. I emptied out all the anger. All the pain. The ocean was there for it. She was steady. Calm. Understanding. Graceful. God. 

Eventually I was able to just sit and listen as well. She had a lot to tell me. God was good. She was somehow warm and cool. Comforting and profound. Insightful and provocative. Her waves, her wind washed over me. 

And I was given a spark.

My spark has done two things for me these past two years. My spark has burned a lot of shit down. I’m not the same person. I’ve let go of so much. I’ve EMBRACED so much. I’ve let go of my religion and found new faith. Faith that is nothing other than love. Love of others. Love of myself. I have so much I want to say and write about this specifically in and of itself. So stay tuned - much more to come here.

Additionally, my spark inspired me to take a leap of faith, to trust myself and my creative instincts and gifts in a way I had never allowed myself to do before, and to embrace my lifelong passion for music and bringing people together, by starting Ascent Radio. 

I’m a dreamer. When Lennon asks us to “imagine,” I’m all up in that. All the people, living for today. Nothing to kill or die for. A brotherhood of man. I cling fiercely and stubbornly to this hope of a better world, this belief that there’s a better way, that better days are ahead, and I believe when we come together, there is power, a force, a synergy released into the world that draws us closer to a better, safer, more just, loving, inclusive and peace-filled world.

This is the spirit, the underlying belief and the curating principle that Ascent is built upon, and the spark for an entire radio station rooted in this belief came to me as I followed the CA-299, meandering alongside the Trinity River on my way home from the coast. 

The dreamer inside of me had been dead for quite some time. I had shut that part of my heart and spirit off several years before, after incurring too many wounds. But somehow, someway, on that sacred beach two years ago, my spark returned. 

I’ve come a long way since that trip. 

I still have a long way to go. My God. There is nothing like trying to come out from trauma like this. But I’ve managed to get out of bed each day - every day for two years. (That may not sound like a feat to you. But if you know, you know. Mental health is a fucking battle.)

I’ve grown so much as a husband. A lover of my wife. I’ve become free. For the first time I feel like my life and my body belong to ME - not someone else. And my wife has continued to embrace ME, all of ME, in new ways I’ve come to know myself or in the understanding of things about myself that I’ve always feared or not been able to understand up to this point.

I’ve become a better dad to my children. It’s a shit show around our place many days. But I wouldn’t trade the chaos for the world. My wife and I pour ourselves out for our two littles on the daily, creating the safe environment for them to be who they are, to be heard, to ask any question, to explore their curiosities and to embrace all of life, and all with no shame. We’re a mess, but I think it’s a beautiful mess, and I’m fucking proud of who my children are becoming. They’re incredible humans. 

I’ve started a business. Me. I’ve done that. (Who would’ve thought?) A business that is still small and fledgling and I have no idea whether or not will make in the in the long run. But I’m trusting myself. My dreams. I’m working hard. And I’m SO damn proud of what Ascent is becoming. Of who has gotten involved. Proud of the music we’re curating together. Honest to God, there’s just nothing else that offers the unique, hand crafted, socially-conscious rooted variety of music out there. This is me screaming it from the rooftops: DITCH your damn Pandora and join the revolution with us. Let’s radio together, for goodness sake. (Seriously, if you haven’t checked out Ascent, stop messing around. Yes, this self-assured, self-confidence kind of pride is maybe off brand for me. But a steady diet of therapy, Glennon and Lizzo is helping me embrace myself. “It’s about damn time.” Check out www.ascent.fm for more info, find us on Facebook (Ascent Radio), Instagram (@ascent.fm), and download our free app today - available for both Apple and Android. We’ve got Women’s History Month tunes spinning all month. You can thank me later.)

<Jonathan steps off the soap box.>

The two years that have passed since the beach have held so many growing pains, so many new challenges and trials and questions and uncertainties. But what has really hit me in this reflecty space I’ve found myself in is, despite all the new challenges and the continual unlearning and relearning I’m undergoing is this:

I feel proud. 

I feel really proud. 

Life still a hot mess? Yep. But as I get older and wiser, whose isn’t, really. Right? I mean, let’s be honest. If you do have it all together, you clearly have access to some sort of super powers and that’s unfair and also makes me fear you. As for me and my house, we will serve the chaos, invite others to the party, dance on top of the toys all over the floor and set the pizza on top of the dirty dishes we chose to leave behind last night because we decided to play with and read to our kids before trying to get them to go to sleep for two hours. 

My spark returned on that beach two years ago. Many days it’s dim, and hard to find. But it’s never gone. 

If you’re still reading this, kudos to you. You’re officially as effed up as me. But in all seriousness, if you’re still reading this, and you’re not sure if your spark is still there, if more days are dark than light, if you’re wondering about un-living as a solution to the pain, please know that there are SO MANY of us that are with you and love you. SO MANY of us that feel like a goddamn mess and don’t know how we’ll make it along. Please reach out. Take some space. Say something. Make a call. Go for a walk, breathe the air, absorb the life and light or the rain and wind, the alive-ness around you. We are ALL in this together. One love. One life that binds us all. And YOU are a beautiful, unique and special piece of our story together. I can’t say that all my darkest days are behind me, or yours are behind you. Shit happens. But you’re beautiful and worth it and we love you and want you and need you to help us keep on pushing, to help us in the ongoing struggle for a more beautiful, safe, inclusive and loving world. If the world doesn’t get you, let’s fix that. Let’s join hands and push back against the darkness together. I’m here. And I want to you you’re here and safe and with us too.

Much love, everyone.

Here’s to the beautiful Spark in all of you. 

Let your Spark burn down what needs to go. And energize you toward the good and beautiful that you bring to the world.

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