Muddling Through Darkness (with a few sun breaks) —

12 min readNov 23, 2024

Revised and Revisited (originally posted Dec 2022)

Context:

Last week I hosted my first-ever (but not the last) “Storytime”

I read a story I wrote back in 2022 during a very hard time in my life — when I thought I was at the tail end of my cancer journey, and it turned out I still had a ways to go. And I was struggling to find hope. The second part was written post-election when I found myself struggling with some of the same feelings.

Kids love to be read to, so why don’t we read to adults more often?

My intent in choosing this story was to get each of us thinking about the hard questions, taking care of ourselves and each other through what may feel like dark times for some, and finding some hope and sun breaks.

Once the story was done, I’ shared some question prompts (listed at the end) in the chat, and folks spent some time reflecting on those questions (solo) or joined a break-out group with a few other folks to listen and share. The choice was theirs. No forced fun. ;-)

If you are interested in joining a future storytime (on any number of other topics — TBD) sign up here: https://share.hsforms.com/1yCcgt1pTTq2A5iE_0WkKfwc80wp

THE STORY: Muddling Through Darkness (with a few sun breaks).

It wasn’t until I moved to Seattle 20 years ago that I had ever seen a weather report use the term “sun breaks” to describe the tiny rays of sunshine that momentarily break through the clouds on the darkest and stormiest days.

My husband Brad called me downstairs on one of MY stormiest days during cancer and declared, “You HAVE to watch this!” He showed me a 30-second video that turned out to be one of those sun breaks for me. It was absolute perfection. It made us both laugh out loud. And it summed up exactly how I’ve been doing lately.

I’ve had more of these days than I’d like to admit over the past few months. I’ve been muddling my way through, feeling a little dead inside while simultaneously being grateful to be alive. But thankfully, there have been sun breaks. As the wise man in the video says, “Tomorrow is a new day.”

Sometimes, the best solution to a dark and stormy day is to just stay home and go back to bed. I wish I’d learned that before age 52, but here we are.

I’m learning a lot about myself through this time. I’m paying attention to the ways my energy ebbs and flows. I’m learning to let go of any particular expectations regarding my recovery speed. I’m accepting that healing takes time.

Letting go of my own expectations of myself has not been easy. I feel pressure to make the rest of my life REALLY matter. As if the universe will take back my second chance at life if I don’t deliver. It’s been a lot to carry. And it has stoked a fire of impatience within. It’s that voice that keeps telling me to hurry to the other side, to muscle my way through, suck it up, and get on with it — no matter what.

There have been many times in my life (and career) where impatience and a degree of sucking it up and getting on with it has served me well. This, however, is not one of those times. There’s just no rushing this process.

My world has been turned upside down, and just when I thought things were going to get easier after chemo ended in April, they got harder. A lot harder. Some of what made it hard lived in my mind. But much of it lived in my body. And some of it lived in medication mishaps. No matter the cause, the pain is real.

A wise teacher in my grad school years once said, “Expectations are nothing more than premeditated resentment.” I’m learning to let go of arbitrary timelines and expectations.

I’ve realized that I need to chill a bit and trust that my motivation, lightheartedness, focus, and joy will return as I work my way back to good health. Only recently have I allowed myself to trust that there is absolutely no way that I will somehow fail at making the rest of my life matter. That is in my DNA. I’m beginning to have faith that my best days are not behind me, but in front of me.

But I also know…now is not the time to muscle and hustle my way through. I know this because my entire body and mind are screaming at the top of their lungs at me:

“Just sit down and be quiet. Wait for the signal. And keep your eyes and heart wide open. Don’t make any big decisions right now. Just get healthy.”

So that’s what I’m doing.

Days after I decided this, I was listening to Michelle Obama’s book The Light We Carry while on the elliptical machine at the gym when I heard a quote so validating I had to stop everything, open a phone note, and write it down.

“It’s ok to tend to your well-being with the same vigor you bring to your fiercest convictions.”

Wow, yes. That feels right to me.

So I’m focusing on the small things I can do to bring myself back to health and hope.

So far this year I’ve called in bald, I’ve called in sick, I’ve called in sad, and I’ve even called in MAD. On a planning call with my team a few weeks back, I had to come clean.

“I don’t trust myself with these executives right now. I worry I will come on too strong, say something that is more hurtful than helpful, and fuck it all up. Can you guys take it without me?”

That was a first for me. Both the part about calling in mad, and the part about worrying I wouldn’t be able to regulate myself appropriately.

I pride myself on seeing the very best in my clients and loving the hell out of them even in their messiest and most ignorant moments (as a leadership practitioner and DEI strategist, this comes with the job description) but right now, I can’t.

Right now, my tolerance and patience for just about everything and everyone is at an all-time low. So my team rose to the challenge without hesitation. And they shined. They had some breakthroughs with the client that day, and it turned out to be the right call for everyone involved. I’m grateful for them and also grateful that I’m learning my limitations.

Earlier this week, my fellow suck-the-marrow-out-of-life friend — Darcy Gabriele — inspired me with a pep talk as I shared that I was battling depression.

“Mitch, feel it all. Put your competitive energy into being the BEST depressed person you can be. Put that Mitch intensity towards being sad, angry, quiet…whatever you need to be. Throw yourself all the way into it.”

She was spot on.

As soon as I stopped trying to resist it, I began to understand it. And move through it. I’ve often advised my clients dealing with messy workplace conflicts or personal dramas to go against their tendency to avoid the hard stuff:

“If you can’t get OUT of it, get INTO it,” I tell them.

I’m turning that advice on myself these days. I’m letting the most difficult emotions course through me until they lose their energy. Like sets of waves.

Looking back, I can see that I rallied like a warrior for the first 8 months or so of this 14-month-and-counting cancer journey. I clicked into gear. I managed to somehow (and somehow very naturally) treat the entire thing like a big adventure, for the most part. And then…I swiftly found myself crumbled and on my knees.

I suppose that is part of the adventure too. I should have known by now, as a lover and seeker of adventure, that half the thrill is not knowing what will happen next.

The unpredictability.

The need to roll with the punches.

The fear.

Basically having to figure-it-the-fuck-out. That’s what makes adventures fun and epic.

But many aspects of adventures are only fun in hindsight. Once you live to tell the tale. Once you’re no longer hurting or scared as hell. This phase of cancer feels a little bit like I’m at the crux of the climb, terrified and hanging on for dear life, while also confident that I’ve got this.

Life has taught me that.

I’m reminded of the time Adi (my daughter who was 11 at the time) asked me, mid-way up a steep mountain climb in the Dolomites, “Mom, do you like hiking WHILE you’re doing it?” I chuckled but my answer was quick.

“Ha! No, not always. My thighs burn. My lungs hurt. I doubt myself sometimes. My mind can start to be mean. But I’ve gotten good at turning those messages around in my mind, and just continuing to walk.”

It was one of my better pep talks as a parent. And I’m glad I gave it because it’s the same pep talk I’m giving myself lately. I know the day will come, on this journey too, where I look back and feel strong and proud.

But I’m not there yet.

Right now, sweat is dripping in my eyes, I’m irritated with every happy hiker who marches past me smiling on the hike downhill, and my mind is being mean (to myself and sometimes to others). It feels like it will never end. And I’m really sick of false summits.

The sadness, rage, outbursts, impatience, and grief. Finding my center again has been hard. I won’t lie. And I know it’s been painful for my friends and family to watch.

This is not just a physical journey back to good health. It’s a mental and emotional journey too. I’m glad I’m chronicling it in vivid detail, because once it’s behind me, I worry I will forget.

I don’t want to forget what I’ve been through or who helped me along the way or how it felt or the mistakes I made or what I’ve learned. I want to remember all of it. The chaos. The overwhelm. The darkness.

And the sun breaks too.

I’m in the darkness of winter, hibernating with some snacks, but I finally feel a glimmer of faith that spring and summer will come. It’s nature. Nothing can stop nature.

Nobody is immune from these downturns and life-altering events. Life is an adventure, filled with pain and adversity that sometimes sends you searching and asking, “Now what?”

I’m asking that question again these days…

It’s November, 2024 now. More than two years after I wrote this post about my cancer journey. And our country is sick with its own kind of cancer.

In my 20’s, I was still idealistic. I still believed that everyone had good intentions. That people were good at heart. That all it took was hard work to achieve the American dream, and that it was equally accessible to everyone.

I didn’t know back then that everything I’d worked so hard to create in the world (in my small sphere of influence) would be turned on its head. I didn’t know that my illusion of the American dream would be shattered as I learned how it was built on insincere promises of equality, justice, and freedom for all. I didn’t know that a leader would come along and forcibly set us back decades.

So what now?

How do I remain curious rather than closed off and judgemental?

How do I stay true to myself, my values, and keep being the change I want to see in the world (when incoming “leader” has run on a platform of attacking DEI)?

How do I keep my heart open to those I love, when I feel betrayed by them?

When they put a leader in power who is the counter to everything I’ve ever known and taught about leadership and humanity? A leader who models all the wrong things:

Dishonesty

Disrespect

Arrogance

Victim-stance

Hate

Abuse of women

Abuse of power

I’m sick about it. And full of rage.

But as Brene Brown says in Atlas of the Heart:

“Anger is a catalyst. Holding onto it will make us exhausted and sick. Internalizing anger will take away our joy and spirit; externalizing anger will make us less effective in our attempts to create change and forge connection. It’s an emotion that we need to transform into something life-giving; courage, love, change, compassion, justice.”

I’m determined to find a way to use my anger for good.

It’s simple but it’s not easy. Simple to understand. Difficult to execute — just like my biggest question of all:

How do I remain hopeful in a world that has broken my heart?

Maybe I need to take a page from my own playbook. The one that came in handy during cancer. The one I STARTED to write years earlier when my husband and I desperately wanted a second child but were beginning to lose hope after I suffered 6 miscarriages. I tried making a pact with myself after the 4th miscarriage: “Just don’t get your hopes up this time.”

But no matter how hard I tried to keep it at bay, hope still appeared. I didn’t have control over my hope. It had control over me. Like leaves growing back in the spring. There was no stopping it from returning. It’s nature. And nothing can stop nature.

We did eventually have a second baby- Ben — who we lovingly refer to as our miracle baby.

Now, watching two highly qualified women leaders *almost* become president over the past decade, but NOT, has drained my hope tank once again. To finally see leaders whose policies and values represent me, and who had the experience to lead, be attacked and belittled instead, was painful.

But, I no longer resist hope out of fear I won’t be able to handle the disappointment.

I leave the door open. I welcome hope’s return.

I choose to believe–then and now– that in the darkness of winter, spring will come.

So… I’m doing the work to choose hope. To find it again. For now, for me, that looks like resting and grieving what we’ve lost in this election. I can’t skip this step. I have to tend to my well-being with vigor so that I can tend to my convictions with that same vigor.

I’m returning to the surest formula I know to get me out of a funk and back to hope:

Don’t rush. Take your time. Trust the process.

Get healthy.

Do something nice for someone else.

Serve.

Meditate.

Get out of your own head.

Don’t believe everything you think.

Write.

Spend time with supportive and inspiring people.

Today, YOU are those supportive and inspiring people. Thank you for being here with me.

My hope for each of you is that whatever season you are facing, and whatever feels are “up” for you, each of you will make your way through the darkness you face with little bits (or heaping gobs) of joy and sun breaks along the way.

May your best days be in front of you, not behind you.

With love,

-Mitch Shepard

How Does Storytime Work?

I read a story. you get cozy and listen. Then, I host a discussion.

It’s simple.

Question Prompts:

What did this story bring up for you? What resonated?

How are YOU navigating these days (around whatever season or challenges you are up against)?

Is anything keeping you stuck? Do you want to do anything differently? If so, what?

How do breakouts work?

You may wish to reflect quietly or journal instead. That is your choice. No judgement!

But if you wish to join a breakout, please do!

Breakout groups of 5 per group — random assortment. (simply opt to come back to the main session if you do not wish to join).

Three Ground Rules for Breakouts:

Listen

Listen with genuine curiosity and empathy, without judgment–with your eyes, ears, and heart.

Your role is just to listen, support, validate, and care about each other as humans! That’s it. Easy, right?

Respect

Respect each other by sharing the airtime. Can someone in each group please manage the time and divide it up equally, based on how many folks are in each group? Thanks!

There is space for everyone to feel and think differently. Your job (when you are listening) is not to solve anything for anyone. It’s not about giving advice, debating, or questioning WHY. Just be present.

This is a place to connect. Share what is up for you in this season of life, and how you are navigating. This might feel scary or awkward for some and easy for others. I invite you to share, no matter how easy or tough it might feel. We are all here to listen. You do you.