Photograph by Matheus Bertelli on Pexels
Every night at bedtime, my son and I go through the same routine. He brushes his teeth. We floss. He changes into his pajamas. We read a story together. I bring him a bottle of water for the night. He gives me a kiss, then I give him a kiss, then we hug, then he says we didn’t do it right and we start over again. When it’s finally time for me to tuck him in, I inevitably find a random assortment of objects.
“Julian, why is there a plastic machete in your bed? What is this rope for? Do you really need all three flashlights under your pillow?” The specific items vary, but the explanations are always the same. “No, Mom!” He says, as I try to remove them from his bed to keep him from strangling/impaling/blinding himself in his sleep. “I need those!” Why does my son require all of this equipment in his bed at night? Because he’s a little bit afraid of the dark.
I may smile at my son’s collection of nocturnal survival gear, but the truth is I’ve always been a bit afraid of the dark myself. It’s just the kind of dark I’m afraid of that has changed over time. I don’t need a flashlight under my pillow anymore, or to leave the bedroom door open a crack. (Actually, my preference would be to seal the bedroom door until morning so no children can enter.) Now that I’m grown up, it’s a different kind of fear of the dark: The fear of not knowing what comes next.
When the Path Goes Dark
If competitive planning were a sport, I would have won all sorts of medals by now. A career in medicine really lends itself to these compulsive planning tendencies; there is a very long, very well-defined path one must take to specialize, with plenty of individual steps to plan years in advance. But even for hardcore planners such as myself, and even in my line of work, there are phases in life when we turn a corner and the path just sort of … goes dark.
I’ve written in the past about pivoting, outgrowing identities, starting new positions, and leaving behind the ones holding us back. These are the inescapable realities of an unpredictable world, and I genuinely believe in their potential to propel us forward if we can lean into them. But as much as it may unlock new possibilities, being in the dark about our future is unsettling.
It’s been said that ancient cartographers used to write HIC SVNT LEONES (Here are lions) to indicate unknown territories on their maps. I sympathize. Being in the dark about where we are headed stirs all kinds of deep-seated fears about what may lie in wait in the uncharted places beyond.
So how do we keep moving forward when we’re in the dark? When we can no longer see the path clearly laid out ahead of us and the territory is unknown?
As always, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to be found here. But there are a few strategies that can serve us as we attempt to make our way through the dark.
Allow the Quiet
My sister and I used to listen to cassette tapes in bed, lulled to sleep by the comforting sounds of Alf from the planet Melmac. (If you don’t know Alf, you’re really missing out. DM me and I’ll be happy to lend you my tapes.) For years, I could not for the life of me fall asleep without some sort of background noise. There’s something about the dark that makes us want to saturate it with sound.
We seem to equate darkness with emptiness and subsequently rush to fill it- if not with light, then at least with noise. And in a world brimming with distractions, it’s not hard to find something to fill the perceived void. But maybe sometimes we have to yield the space to the dark in order to find the answers we’re looking for, or to even start to ask the questions. In fact, maybe that’s exactly why we need to be in the dark in the first place.
Our lives are full of bright lights and loud noises. They show up in the shape of demanding bosses, looming deadlines, our kids’ extracurricular activities, a perpetual stream of Instagram reels, or that never-ending list of household tasks. These diversions consume most if not all of our attention. So much so that we may find ourselves unable to filter out the essential from the inconsequential. In medicine, we call this alarm fatigue, when we are exposed to so many warning signals that we experience sensory overload and end up not acting on the ones that truly matter.
Amid all this visual and acoustic noise, we tend to miss the other voices quietly asking to be heard. The ones that are not about benchmarks and visible accolades and tangible results and instant gratification. The ones that tell us about deeper needs going unmet, the bigger picture of our lives, and the pieces of us that have fallen by the wayside. In the dark we can finally hear parts of ourselves speaking that haven’t gotten a word in edgewise. But we have to allow the quiet. We have to be willing to sit in the dark without immediately turning up the volume.
One Small Stretch At A Time
I recently heard an interview in which a writer likened writing a novel to driving on a highway at night. You can’t see the entire stretch of road. All you can see is the piece directly ahead of you, the hundred meters or so illuminated by your headlights. But, he said, those hundred meters are enough for you to keep going.
Life is like that. Sometimes we are driving in the dark and all we can see is the road right in front of us. But it’s enough to keep going.
Letting go of the idea that we have to see our way to the end of the journey while we’re still en route allows us to focus on that stretch of road right in front of us. We just keep inching forward one small section at a time, trusting that we will eventually come across a signpost or a gas station where we can refuel and ask for directions. Because the truth is, even when we’re in the dark, life is still full of signposts and gas stations. We may not know how long it will take to reach them, but if we keep moving, one will inevitably appear.
Moving forward one small stretch at a time might look like taking that eight-week professional development class, or putting your business idea into writing, or joining a society in an area you feel passionate about, or attending a weekend communication workshop, or going on that medical mission trip you’ve always had an eye on, or finding a coach, (or starting a blog!), without knowing exactly where any of those smaller endeavors will lead.
Don’t Hide From the Bears
When I was younger, my dad and I used to travel to the Swiss Alps, where we would go on hikes through the mountains. If you’re picturing some sort of Cheryl Strayed-traveling-the-Pacific-Crest-Trail type scenario let me just stop you right there. This was more of a leisurely stroll through nature to pass the time between pots of fondue.
On one of our hikes, we came across a tunnel that had been carved into the side of the mountain. We’d been walking for quite a while and the only way to make it to the next serving of melted cheese was to pass through. There were no lights inside the tunnel, nothing but darkness (and probably bears).
I stood there, absolutely terrified, unable to take even a step forward. I would have stayed rooted to the spot until the Swiss cows came home if it hadn’t been for my dad taking my hand and coaxing me to the other side. Yes, I was still afraid. No, I didn’t think my dad could actually fend off potential bears (Let’s be real, they definitely would have eaten him first). But knowing he was in the tunnel with me made it possible to keep moving.
When we’re in the dark, our natural inclination is to hide, to make ourselves small, to make sure the bears in the tunnel don’t find us. We may even feel ashamed of our dark when it seems like everyone else’s path is illuminated in the mistaken belief that being in the dark means we’re getting it wrong. This impulse to conceal our vulnerability means we end up isolated. But the dark is best not conquered alone. In the dark is where we need connection more than ever.
Hearing other people’s stories about conquering their dark patches has been enormously helpful when navigating my own. Reaching out when I’ve been in the dark has normalized my experience, provided inspiration and new ideas, made me hopeful about what lies ahead, and strengthened my connections to others by revealing struggles we didn’t know we shared.
So, here’s my suggestion. Meet with people. Speak with friends and colleagues. Look for mentors, supporters, and allies. Ask for advice. Then feel free to ignore it. Go to those who like to talk and those who are good at listening. Some people may only accompany you a few steps, others will stay with you until you make it through. But each point of connection will play a role in helping you move forward, whether by drawing you toward one thing or leading you away from another.
And when you’ve reached the other side of the tunnel, don’t forget to look back and see who may need your hand.
Chase Every Spark
When we find ourselves in the dark we may need to create our own sources of light. Tapping into the things that light us up from within is one way to keep us moving forward when everything around us has gone dark.
How do we find those things? Just ask.
Ask your childhood self. What was little-kid-you or adolescent-you passionate about? What was it you liked to do that you could really lose yourself in? Over time, many of us lose touch with the things that used to light us up when we were younger. Looking back to the versions of ourselves that were unencumbered by the need to ‘be successful’ with what we do, we often find clues to things that still light us up. Maybe we loved to explore, or paint rocks, or write stories about dolphins, or create elaborate puppet shows and demand our family buy tickets to them.
Finding ways to adapt our childhood passions and incorporate them into our lives can restore that spark we once felt. And here’s the thing about sparks: even the smallest ones can start a fire.
Ask your people. Another way to figure out what lights us up is to ask the people closest to us. What do they see you do or talk about that makes you really come alive? Your sister might remind you of all the books and articles on leadership you share with her. Your friend might note how good you are at connecting people with similar professional interests. Your former colleague may observe how you came up with community outreach initiatives and mobilized resources for them during residency. Your brother might mention how much you seemed to enjoy teaching a class as a volunteer at the local high school.
Sometimes our inner light is best seen from the outside.
Ask your subconscious. Lastly, we can ask ourselves. Research from creativity theory and the psychology of motivation shows that when we ask our conscious mind questions we don’t know the answer to- such as ‘What do I really want to do professionally?’- our non-conscious mind gets to work looking for answers*. Following an incubation period, during which our conscious mind is busy with other things, we often start to get hints. They may come to us via memories that resurface unexpectedly, or feeling drawn to a certain book, or noticing an email we would normally have skimmed right past, or an urge to speak to someone we haven’t connected with in a long time.
When we’re looking for illumination, it’s worth paying close attention to whatever sparks our interest.
Look for the Light
A few years ago in Berlin, dark restaurants were all the rage. A warning to those of you that have not had the pleasure of dining in utter darkness: If you suffer from claustrophobia, you may want to skip this activity. Apparently, it’s not uncommon for complete darkness to trigger intense feelings of panic in those of us who are claustrophobically-inclined, a fact I’d have loved to know before I submitted myself to this little social experiment.
My panic began the moment the waitress guided our party into the pitch-black room and lasted throughout the first three courses of the meal. As I tried not to hyperventilate to the point of passing out, knowing that no one would notice if I did, a door swung open just a bit too far and a faint crack of light illuminated the room. Suddenly, what had seemed like a vast and eerie space transformed into a regular restaurant with a dozen or so tables and reassuring exit points. After that, I was able to relax enough to at least wonder what I was eating. My point is this: Sometimes a tiny bit of light is all we need. Looking for the brief slivers of illumination can be enough to keep us going until the meal is over and we can finally leave the dark behind.
The dark is not a place of comfort. But it can be a place of quiet questions and meaningful answers, of connection to others and to ourselves, a place of incubation from which we emerge transformed and fortified for the bigger, brighter roads ahead.
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*If you want to hear more about this fascinating phenomenon, I recommend listening to this Hidden Brain episode with psychologist Ken Sheldon.