The Gift Within the Darkness by Brian D. Calhoun

There are all kinds of death.

A job could end suddenly, a friendship could drift apart or perhaps a marriage falters. There is also the ending of a life; death happens all around us and all throughout our lives. How do you cope with such change an upheaval when the body and the mind want to float within the sea of shadows that is in all of us?

Thankfully, there is a light in the dark, a gift that we are being given, something we have to learn or something we can take away that will be for the better.

Brian D. Calhoun has written a book called The Gift Within the Darkness: Healing Insights, Heartfelt Stories and Techniques to Reconnect after Death that talks about this very subject. Here’s a bit about the book:

Have you recently experienced a death?

Are you still struggling after your loved one transitioned years ago?

Perhaps you have encountered a loss in another aspect of your life?

The Gift Within the Darkness is a unique and insightful view at the effects of loss on you and your life. Within these pages, you will discover how you can heal and reconnect after death, with a specific look at:

Understanding death with its varying disguises

How grief affects you in different ways

How to move past the pain to see and experience the gift

The bereavement process

How death can impact you and your life – long after loss

Healing and connecting with spirit

And more…

You too can get in touch with the energy contained within the soul, through the teachings, heartfelt stories, prayers and healing messages shared within this book.

Connect with your angels, guides, psychic abilities and energy bodies to learn how to channel these forces to reconnect with your heavenly loved ones to get your own messages, should you wish to.

The Gift Within the Darkness provides you with incredible insights about a world that is an enigma for many. Get your copy today and begin to unravel the mystery now!

Brian asked several others to contribute their stories for the book, to show that loss and death could happen at any time in our lives and how we chose to deal with it. When Brian asked me to write a piece for the book, I knew that I wanted to write about the end of my previous marriage and what it cost me; also, what I learned and gained in my healing.

I share it with you in hopes that it helps someone else. You can find it below. Make sure to get a copy of The Gift Within the Darkness at here:

Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Gift-Within-Darkness-Heartfelt-Techniques/dp/1775204308/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1515705517&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Gift+within+the+darkness

Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/Gift-Within-Darkness-Heartfelt-Techniques/dp/1775204308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1515705571&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Gift+within+the+darkness+Brian+D.+Calhoun

And now, here is my piece from The Gift Within the Darkness:

 

Clearing Away the Smoke with Fire

My mind was a sea of fog.

Through the thick cloud I could hear nothing, see nothing, and feel nothing. My entire world was numb. Within that numbness appeared three words:

“You’re a failure.”

As I tried to go on with my life and attempted to find something good left within it, I walked through the fog that followed me everywhere. From within that fog came three words:

“You’re a failure.”

I lay within my fog. The last three words he had spoken to me repeated again and again inside my head.

“You’re a failure.”

I replayed every moment, everything that had been said, as my marriage crashed to pieces around me. I saw myself trying to catch the pieces in the air, but they were jagged crystal from a broken chalice that sliced through my hands until they erupted in blood. My palms looked as if they were covered with liquid rose petals.

I was like this for a few weeks. Until the papers came.

When they arrived, I didn’t know what they were. I felt a sense of unease as I stared at the official envelope. The plain rectangle screamed not to be opened, but I had to know. When I slid the envelope open and withdrew the papers, I saw Robert’s name.

Then I read through them, one sheet at a time.

They were divorce papers, the ones he didn’t even have the courage to hand me himself. I sat down, gutted, the walls moving around me as if the world itself was shaking. He had asked for the separation and I had given that to him. I had given him everything: my heart, my comfort, and my sanity.

I had given him everything and he had given me nothing in return.

I sat there, shaking, the papers trembling in my grasp. Then I looked at them again. He had not signed them. Both spots for the signatures remained empty. He had mailed me the papers to goad me into coming back to him, or just to upset me. It had the desired effect, but not the way that Robert hoped it would.

“You’re a coward,” I said out loud. My voice boomed in my small apartment. “You’re a coward, Robert. You’re a coward.”

I felt furious. A fire burned in me, bright and strong, and it cleared away the fog. It cleared away the fear. My sense of self returned to me, an awareness of me that hadn’t been there for years. I had sacrificed a lot of myself to my marriage and had let Robert cut away until I was but a shell of who I had been.

He had taken away my friends, who had stopped calling to talk to me. He had driven a wedge in between my parents and me. He had left me alone on an island within a marriage. At that moment, when I was at my lowest, I decided that I would never be alone again.

I would come to know myself once more, and I would start living my life, not just merely existing or wading through the fog. I wanted to engage with life, celebrate life, and truly live it. I would not let Robert’s last words be my own.

I began a journey that day, sitting in my dark apartment. I searched for the light in my life. Where there was none, I created light so that there would be no more darkness or mist. There would be no more shadows. I would finally take control of my own life, rather than let someone else control me.

I reconnected with friends, forged ahead in my writing career, and strengthened my relationship with my parents. I also stayed open to love and the possibility that there was love out there in the world for me—real, true love.

The separation had taken over my life, but now I could focus again on living. In the end, what had seemed like the most horrible thing to me at the time turned into a gift. I was no longer under someone else’s control, no longer in the dark.

What Robert had unknowingly given me has continued to give back. The death of my marriage had brought me a new life, a new existence. I was able to mend my chalice.

For that, I am eternally thankful.