Prevailing Through Darkness: Finding the Path and Shining Bright
Nicole introduces a new season of Here For Me by sharing her powerful journey of prevailing over life's formidable “tower moments.” From battling health issues to leaving an abusive relationship, Nicole's story is one of triumph over darkness. Join her as she explores the profound art of letting go, confronting inner shadows, and fear of speaking her truth, ultimately emerging on the path that was meant for her, shining brighter than ever, and demonstrating that one can prevail with resilience and renewal.
Show Notes:
Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of prevail
Oxford English dictionary definition of prevail
San Diego’s Coronado Beach
Carl Jung, the shadow self, and shadow work
Nicole’s praying mantis friend dancing to Jean Knight’s “Mr. Big Stuff” (sound on 😀):
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[00:00:03] Welcome to Here For Me, a podcast about the power of choosing yourself. I'm Nicole Christie and I'm honored to be here with you to share life-altering stories, lessons learned, and advice from leading experts that will help you show up for yourself with the love, honor, compassion and encouragement you give to others. Because, just as we say “I'm here for you” to show we care for someone, saying “I'm here for me” to ourselves is the best form of self-care.
We're talking this season about prevailing, rising above hardship, loss, and difficult circumstances to achieve dreams, success, to find the path that was always meant for us. We'll hear from people who faced situations that could have destroyed their livelihood or their lives, who faced upsets and upheaval, who scaled seemingly insurmountable odds, ultimately swimming to calmer waters [00:01:00] and a destination more beautiful than they could have imagined.
We'll also examine what it means to prevail because we live in a world that defines it as big, bold, badass gains. My good friend Merriam-Webster defines prevail as “gaining ascendancy through strength or superiority.” While her archrival, the Oxford English Dictionary, says it's “to prove more powerful over opposing forces. To be victorious.” Yet for most of us, prevailing happens on a smaller scale. It's baby steps, the almost imperceptible ways of surviving challenges and thriving on the other side. It's winning the day to day battles we find in front of us. Or perhaps more often within us.
[00:01:47] Over the summer, we took a hiatus from production on Here For Me, mostly to take our own advice by taking time for ourselves to breathe and to savor. I had lofty prevail plans for the first summer I'd been on my own in 11 years. I envisioned good times with good friends, taking road trips, trying new restaurants, being a tourist in my own town.
Instead, as summer got underway, I was pulled deeply inward. At first I fought it, doing my best to rally and make plans with friends, but they kept falling apart or not coming together at all. I finally took it as a sign to tune into what my heart and body were telling me. It was time to stop, to rest, to integrate the lessons of loss and grief that were behind me, but had yet to become a part of me.
Because the thing about prevailing is you're often so battle-weary, putting one foot in front of the other, you forget you're even at war. If you lift your head and look around, you'll step on a landmine. It's only once the battle is behind you that you see how dire your conditions were all along.
The summer of 2023 was the moment [00:03:00] I raised my head, the moment I let what I'd prevailed over sink in. That I'd lost multiple layers of skin and all my toenails to a freak virus. That I'd moved to a new city, battled ocular cancer, left a 20-year career in tech, started a business, launched a podcast and left a decade-long abusive relationship, all in three years during a global pandemic.
[00:03:26] In many ways, navigating the aftermath of trauma is the real prevail. It's what you do with what you've overcome. It's where you become better or bitter.
I chose better. And for me that meant allowing the gravity of these experiences to infiltrate my cells, which required near-constant alone time and quiet introspection. So much so that I can't really tell you what I did from June through August, other than to say it looked nothing like the hot girl summer I'd envisioned.
There were restaurants and road trips, but [00:04:00] I felt called to experience most of it solo. This isn't unusual for me as a lone wolf only child, but I was surprised by how much I embraced it and how I never looked at anyone who was part of a couple or a group of friends and felt envy. I didn't snub them, but I didn't covet what they had.
There were also frequent walks on Coronado Beach. Feet in sand, ankles in salt water, AirPods in ears. As I shared in episode one of Season 2, music has always been my lifeblood. Earlier this year, it was key to my grieving. And this summer it was key to my healing. Pushing the lessons into every bone in my body, every nook in my soul. Those lessons inform how I now move through the world–more aware, more authentic, more aligned.
[00:04:51] I'm grateful for these experiences because they blew wind into my sails and gave me the strength and momentum to leave behind a life that wasn't a safe [00:05:00] harbor. As I found my way to smoother seas, I felt my heart open and fill a space with new energy that had settled into my body. It was an unexpected type of prevailing, that of feeling self-contained–perhaps for the first time in my life, at the midpoint of my earthly journey, which seems a long time to reach self-containment, but I welcome it with a loving embrace I've often sought outside myself.
Along with new energy, I feel like I'm seeing the world with new eyes. As someone who prevailed over ocular cancer, this metaphor isn't lost on me. But I've noticed nature coming to life in ways it never has. Or at least that I've never observed. I perpetually cross paths with dragonflies, butterflies, and our family's symbol for my beloved late grandmother, hummingbirds.
The butterflies [00:06:00], a notorious sign of transformation and rebirth, are particularly prevalent. Black and white ones have visited me at multiple Padres games. Yellow and white butterflies frequently flutter about my windshield while I'm crawling in traffic. And the monarch butterflies are everywhere, especially at Coronado Beach. Flying alongside me or in front of me, as if letting me know I'm divinely guided and supported wherever I go.
I'm a big believer in signs and synchronicities and wondered about the significance of these creatures, especially the butterflies. [00:06:36] One day, I parked the car a few blocks from the beach and sat there a minute, mindlessly scrolling Instagram, when my eyes landed on this post featuring the words of the writer Beau Taplin: Perhaps the butterfly is proof that you can go through a great deal of darkness, yet still become something beautiful.
Teary-eyed, I shared the post as a story. When [00:07:00] I opened the car door, I was immediately greeted by not one, but two monarch butterflies who escorted me all the way to the edge of the sand.
As I embraced Hot Introvert Summer, I was invited to share my story as a guest on other podcasts. Having spent two decades in corporate communications, I'm well versed in messaging and managing the narrative. What I never fully understood about press interviews, particularly when someone is sharing their personal story, is the massive vulnerability hangover that hits when you turn off the mic. I've talked with fellow podcasters about my health battles, surviving abuse, and finding resilience through it all. Telling the stories is easy. Managing the feelings they trigger is not, let alone the brain fog, fatigue, short fuse, and tears that start and stop out of nowhere.
Until [00:08:00] a few months ago, I'd only spoken about the abuse I experienced on this podcast, referring to it as a troubled relationship and sharing how I'd abandoned myself, people-pleased, not set boundaries. I have never and will never share the details of what unfolded, nor the identity of the person with whom I was engaged in that dynamic.
[00:08:22] But speaking more directly to it, in response to thoughtful questions from people who graciously held space for me, required me to prevail in an entirely new way: over fear. Fear of retaliation. Fear of judgment. Fear of not being liked. Fear that people might think less of me because they believe I'm airing dirty laundry. Fear that a future romantic partner will reject me because they think I'm going to divulge what transpires between us or spin a narrative to avenge them or serve myself.
These fears, rooted in deep shame of being rejected for speaking [00:09:00] my truth, are part of my shadow self. The psychologist Carl Jung defined the shadow archetype as the dark and emotional side of the personality or psyche. It's the unconscious, wounded self that forms from parts of ourselves that were ignored, shamed, or ridiculed when we were children, leading us to subconsciously reject them to receive love, acceptance, and validation. The shadow self is the one we can blame when we get in our own way. It's worth examining and healing because, as Jung said, until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
As people reached out to me to tell my story, I initially only wanted to speak to my recovery from health issues, my unconventional career path, and how to tap into resilience. But the wiser people in my life reminded me there are others who need to hear about my experience [00:10:00] because emotional and verbal abuse can happen to anyone, [00:10:04] and because it's often frog-in-boiling-water-subtle.
Every interview is a full-on confrontation with my shadow self, who wants me to keep mum to keep the peace. But if my lips are sealed, I forever hold a mouthful of poison. The power remains with the person who proffered that elixir. And others who have also tasted it, and are swishing it from one cheek to the other, may never spit it out, breathe, and heal.
There are many ways we can do shadow work. Mine is telling my story. It's making the unconscious conscious. It's letting the fear wash over me and not judging it. As I speak my truth, I release its hold on me and the shadow self is fading. After all, shadows are formed when light cannot penetrate an object, releasing the truth removes the blockage so the light can flow through me, freeing me to truly shine.
In [00:11:00] Season 2, we talked a lot about Tarot. I shared a story about a condo building I can see from my living room called The Tower, which mirrors the image of the tower card in my tarot deck. Throughout last season and in this new season, we talk about tower moments, those times when everything in life crumbles to the ground. We lose a job, a loved one, our health, our minds. It's when everything slips through our hands, when we aren't sure we'll survive.
[00:11:36] But this is when the path is cleared to rebuild and realign us, often in better ways we could never envision. In tarot, the card that follows the trauma of The Tower is The Star. A guidebook I consult to interpret the tarot says, “Even in the rubble of broken systems and cleared delusions, The Star recognizes all she is blessed with. She is filled with a [00:12:00] deep faith that she has all she needs within herself to find fulfillment. That the core of her humanity, her spirit, is untouchable.”Maybe this is also what it means to prevail. You face the battles outside yourself, then the battles inside yourself. As you remove the blockages and clear a path for the light, you recognize you are all you need. It's what I learned during Hot Introvert Summer. Of course, it doesn't mean that once you're self contained, you live a life without struggle. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “To be a star, you must shine your own light, follow your own path, and don't worry about the darkness. For that is when the stars shine brightest”.
Except it's not easy to follow your own path, especially when it's paved with uncertainty and the realization that you are, in fact, on your own. As I reflect on the tower moments [00:13:00] that brought me to this place and required me to let go of so much–my health, my hometown, my job, my marriage–I realize I am truly navigating with only my own light. [00:13:13] There's little to no feedback from a partner who shares my home or colleagues who share my professional wins and woes. I'm often unsure that what I'm doing, what I'm creating, is resonating or even matters. It's like walking through a dark tunnel, breathing deeply and feeling my way along the walls, one foot in front of the other, hoping to avoid a landmine, hoping for a sign that all this letting go, all this creating space and walking toward what calls me, what feels purposeful is the right path and not a wayward hallucination.
Recently, I spent two nights in Palm Springs at a hotel I discovered with my ex-husband and reclaimed over the summer on what would have been our eighth wedding anniversary. During that visit, I met new friends, made new memories, and decided to return [00:14:00] on the one year anniversary of our decision to part ways. I was working on this episode while I was there, which was more emotional than I bargained for, and on my last night, I wanted nothing more than to stay in for dinner.
Thankfully, there's a delightful poolside bistro at the hotel, and I had the place to myself that evening. As I sipped a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and read my book, something small, slender, and chartreuse landed next to me on the banquette. At first I thought it was a bit of foliage from the many plants on the property. But then I saw it looking at me. It was a praying mantis. [00:14:38] We stared at each other for a long time, and when Jean Knight's “Mr. Big Stuff” floated through the speakers, he busted into a comical little dance.
He stayed with me all through dinner. And whenever I looked at him, he was regarding me with kind eyes. He was just the company I needed that evening–or maybe ever. Someone who sees my soul as [00:15:00] I see theirs, who holds space for me to be myself, who is both gentle and strong, yet makes me laugh. That night, back in my room, I looked up what it means to see a praying mantis. As it turns out, they're a sign of luck, of new beginnings, of good things coming to those who wait. And, in what felt like an answered prayer, that one is on the right path.
I'll never know what tower moments are still ahead of me that will require me to prevail in ways big and small. There are those that are fights for our lives and others that are fights for our soul. But when everything crumbles, when the tower falls, the object blocking the light disappears, it's our opportunity to face the darkness, to confront our shadow. And as the Oxford English Dictionary says, prove more powerful over opposing forces. I'll [00:16:00] always have my eyes peeled for signs that my intuition is spot on, that I'm on the right path, that I can prevail over what life hands me and what's inside me.
What I learned on my summer vacation is that nature is often the best place to turn for the guidance we need. [00:16:18] The butterfly that's beautiful on the other side of darkness. The stars that shine brightly in the night sky. The praying mantis who peers into our soul and reassures us we're exactly where we need to be.
Making it to the other side of darkness with my hope, optimism, inner light, faith in humanity, and belief in love intact is, without question, my greatest accomplishment. It's reminiscent of the butterfly's journey, but it's the best kind of beautiful, the kind that comes from the inside, where the light can shine directly through me, a light that's mine to radiate into the universe, illuminating it through my truth–all sunlight [00:17:00] and no shadow.
Welcome to the Prevail season of Here For Me.
Here For Me is produced by Lens Group Media in association with Tulla Productions. As is often said, it takes a village to make this podcast, and my deepest gratitude goes out to every person in that village. Our producers Dave Nelson and Stacy Harris, our audio editor, JD Delgado, designer and illustrator Amy Senftleben, and our production assistant, Sarah Carefoot. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you'd follow the show, rate, review, and share it with people you love. You can also follow me on Instagram and Facebook at nicolejchristie. Until next time, thank you so much for listening–here's to you being here for you and to the power of choosing yourself.