“In 2019 I walked Spain’s famous pilgrimage, El Camino de Santiago.” So begins the introduction to my new podcast, From Sparks to Light. A new and daunting adventure, to be sure. One that has brought up all my fears and insecurities as well as feelings of excitement, curiosity, wonder, vulnerability and many, many others.
I’ve been feeling a sense of exhaustion lately, despite the fact that I have gotten plenty of sleep. Being tired is not unusual, especially for me, but this is a different kind of tired. A fatigue I can feel deep in my bones. A profound sense of discouragement, a kind of “who the hell cares anymore” and “it’s all starting to get too hard.” It worried me.
I’m going to be honest here. I’ve been struggling. I’m not someone who is prone to long periods of depression (thank goodness) but lately I find myself reverting back to my old Eeyore days (a Cardinal Club reference) when I had a tendency to see the glass as half full. This, however, was something different.
I know I’m not unusual. These are difficult times (my glass half full friend Maura prefers to call them challenging, but to me they are just plain hard). I don’t have to convince you of that. I was growing tired of waking up every morning with a sigh of discouragement. The more I slid down the rabbit hole of despair, the more things started to feel bleak, like were we ever going to come out of this crap? And to tell you the truth, I was starting feel like the answer was no.
The question for me was, what was I going to do about it?
A few months ago I was having one of those conversations with one of my wise sons. Thank god for our kids, right? Their glasses aren’t all scratched and smudged like the ones we wear. He reminded me that I don’t have any control over most of the things that are getting me down. He believes that things will get better, because young people aren’t going to put up with this shit for long. They want a better world than the one they have right now. And there are good people out there fighting to make the world a better place.
I want to believe he is right. It brought back a lesson from that 500 mile walk, the gift I received of a small paper star to remind us to be the light for someone. And I knew what I needed to do. It’s up to us. As the saying goes, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
My new podcast From Sparks to Light shares the stories of people who are spreading light. Ordinary people who follow their spark and find their purpose in taking action. They don’t wait until they have all the answers. Or get all the money. Or have the perfect solution. They don’t look around for someone else to do the work, to make the change, to fix the problem. They start where they are. One step at a time.
These stories inspire me. I hope they will inspire you. I invite you to listen. New episodes drop every Thursday. You can find them wherever you listen to your podcasts.
