When the Light Is Too Bright

A few weeks ago I shared a blog called The Medicine of Mutuality. In it I highlighted how I was integrating the theme of mutuality into my heart chakra playshops...then suddenly a medical emergency happened in my life that called for me to live mutuality in real time. Here's a link to that blog that has some of the backstory about what unfolded. Read Blog Here.

Every meaningful Hero's Journey includes a stage known as the Road of Trials, a time when our beliefs are tested, our strengths are stretched, and resources we've spent years cultivating suddenly become essential for our journey.

After a couple of intense weeks of emergency room visits, appointments with specialists, MRIs, blood work, and a lumbar puncture, I have officially been initiated into my 2026 Road of Trials! It arrived suddenly and without invitation, as life's trials so often do. One moment I was moving forward with plans, projects, and adventures I'd been looking forward to. Then, the path changed beneath my feet instantly and I found myself traveling through an entirely different landscape of life.

When Light Became Too Much

After many tests, my doctors have begun ruling out some of the more serious possibilities of what was causing my symptoms. And while there is still uncertainty about what's happening, what is certain is that my brain & visual cortex is over-stimulated and needs rest.

I'm experiencing extreme sensitivity to light. For many days, I could barely open my eyes. The curtains stayed closed. The lights stayed off. I could not use any screens. Most of my time was spent lying quietly on my couch with my eyes closed, waiting for my nervous system to settle.

My world became small & dark. I learned a new word during this experience: photophobia, which translates into "being afraid of the light". This has never happened to me before, and it's been scary & saddening.

I'm someone who seeks the light. I spend as much time as I can outdoors, hiking, camping, and exploring the world.. Even my name carries symbolism of light. Raven is the “Bringer of Light” and Shree is “The Effervescent Light of the Divine.” Now I find myself repulsed by the very thing I've spent my life loving & striving to be. It's been quite heartbreaking.

These times have me revisiting a page I created several years ago in my art journal around the power of darkness.

The experience I've been having is that if I look at too bright of a light, it kicks off an Ocular Migraine, another new word I learned this month. Without warning, shimmering, flashing geometric lights appear in both of my eyes. They slowly expanded across my field of vision, making it difficult to see or focus on anything. The entire episode lasts about thirty minutes, then the flashing lights gradually fade away.

The aftermath of these ocular migraines is photophobia, which lasts for about 4-5 days! I've been wearing sunglasses in the house, even with the curtains closed. One of my docs told me most people who get ocular migraines get about 5-6 a year, I had that many in just 2 weeks. It's been intense & exhausting. Here’s an image I drew of the flashing lights to show my docs what was happening when the migraine auras hit.

Gathering My Allies

An essential practice of the Hero's Journey is cultivating resources. It's a principle I return to often in my workshops to support my clients & myself with exploring resources we already have in our life, defining which ones need tending, and what resources we still need to gather for the journey ahead.

For years, I've been cultivating deep friendships, rebuilding community after COVID, practicing vulnerability, and investing in relationships rooted in trust, aliveness, love & care.

As I find myself walking this unexpected stretch of my Road of Trials, I see I am not entering this landscape empty-handed. I am carrying many resources with me; both internal & external.

Allies Along the Way

About 5 years ago, I completed my will and end-of-life paperwork. As part of that process, I chose three of my close women friends to serve as my healthcare advocates if I were ever unable to care for myself. I am grateful I had those conversations years ago because this experience has confirmed I chose my circle of support wisely.

These 3 women are far more than just names on legal paperwork. They are cherished friends, trusted companions, and living reminders that some of life's greatest resources are the people who choose to walk beside us, especially when the path becomes difficult. This experience has illuminated just how rich my life is with people I love and trust, a tribe of co-hearts cultivated over many years that is now helping me find my way through this unfamiliar terrain.

One friend, who lives here in Colorado, drove to the hospital, stayed with me, and helped me settle back into my home after an intense week in & out of the hospital.

Another friend in California supported me from afar. Every day she researched medical information, reviewed my test results, and sent encouraging video messages that reminded me I wasn't navigating this alone.

A third friend drove from San Diego to Denver and stayed with me for eleven days. She grocery shopped, helped around the house, accompanied me to appointments, and sat beside me as I navigated intense photophobia, uncertainty, and the deep grief that has settled into my daily life.

Together, these three women remind me that mutuality isn't something we build in the middle of a crisis. It is cultivated over years of friendship; through shared experiences, deepening trust, and consistently showing up for one another long before an emergency arrives.

Mutuality in Ordinary Life

Having my dear friend Meli here for almost 2 weeks was an extraordinary gift for my BodyMindSpirit. She quietly tended to the ordinary parts of daily life that suddenly became overwhelming for me. She went grocery shopping, prepared meals, drove me to appointments, and simply kept me company as I navigated my recovery.

At the same time, Meli was building out her truck camper for an upcoming road trip. My garage became her workshop space. I was able to offer lumber, wood stain, tools, supplies, and a place where she could continue bringing her truck camper vision to life. It was awesome to see her build this mobile home space in my driveway.

She cared for me & I cared for her. Not in the same ways, but in ways that each of us was able to offer in the moment. We shared in the beautiful rhythm of mutuality by sharing in ordinary life together. There were no workshops to facilitate. No grand adventures to chase. Just cooking meals, washing dishes, feeding the animals, and sitting quietly together as we both processed the intensity & uncertainty of our lives. There was something sweetly sacred in the simplicity of our togetherness.

Mutuality isn't about keeping score or giving equal amounts. It's about offering what we have, when we have it, and trusting that love naturally flows in both directions over the course of a relationship. This friendship has been a cornerstone of my life for two decades. We have walked beside one another through many chapters of life, each of us giving and receiving in different ways along the way. I am so grateful Meli was able to stay with me during this stretch of my journey. My heart is deeply touched and our bond is even deeper now.

Letting Others Carry the Load

Another place where mutuality revealed itself was at work. My medical emergency began during a work meeting & sharing with my team what was happening in real time was a big act of vulnerability for me. There's a particular humility that comes from being a leader who suddenly cannot lead.

I've missed 3 weeks of work so far. I've never taken that much time off work before ever....not even on my longest vacation. I'm part of a large team, and was leading a complex project with many moving pieces, relationships & deadlines. My absence from work wasn’t a small inconvenience. It created gaps that others had to fill in instantly.

I wanted to keep contributing. I wanted to push through. But my body made the decision for me. I was able to join a few meetings by phone and offer my voice if needed, however, mostly I had to let go. Missing work has been challenging for me. Stepping away so suddenly has brought grief, guilt, and the painful feeling that I have somehow let my team down.

And yet, mutuality emerged in my work life too. My teammates absorbed additional responsibilities. My leadership team encouraged me to focus on healing instead of work. My manager consistently checks in with compassion rather than pressure. The organization is giving me paid leave while I recover, at least for now.

Over the years, I've invested deeply in my work & in the relationships I've built there. When life unexpectedly asked me to stop giving, that investment returned & is continuing to support me. This experience has reminded me that the strongest teams aren't built on performance alone. They are built on relationships, trust, generosity, and the recognition that behind every role, deadline, and deliverable is a human being whose life will sometimes ask more of them than just work. And the truth is, sometimes we need to take a real break from work to deal with our life and health.

Relationship with Technology

One of the more obvious lessons coming through for me from this experience has been staring me in the face, quite literally. For years, I've lived in front of screens. My day job requires me to spend 10+ hours a day moving between multiple monitors, facilitating virtual meetings, designing learning experiences, reading and writing on bright computer monitors. 

When my workday ends, I begin my “heart work”, writing blogs, creating programs, designing workshops, building my website, and serving the Wild Soul Wanderings community, mainly through my laptop. 

Then there’s my phone. Texts. Emails. Social Media. Photos. By the time I add it all together, I usually spend 13-15 hours a day looking at a glowing screen!

As my eyesight has gradually changed over the past several years, my response has been to turn up the brightness so I can see better. Without giving it much thought, I kept asking my eyes to accommodate more and more artificial light.

I even created a page in my art journal earlier this year around my addiction to technology. I even find this page challenging to look at...it's quite intense.

Technology is not the enemy. It allows me to do work I love. It connects me with beautiful people across the country. It makes my livelihood possible. But somewhere along the way, I stopped practicing mutuality with it. The relationship became one-sided. I kept asking more and more from my eyes, my brain, and my nervous system without asking what they needed in return.

This experience has become an invitation to renegotiate my relationship with technology.

• To dim the brightness on my screens instead of assuming brighter is better.

• To use filters that soften the harshness of artificial light.

• To step outside, rest my eyes, and let nature recalibrate my nervous system

Technology will continue to be part of my life, but I need to make changes to how I use it. As I slowly recover, I am making changes to my workspace so I can return to work. I am genuinely looking forward to returning to work. I miss my team, the rhythm of my days, and the satisfaction of contributing.

The Journey I Didn’t Plan

The timing of this medical crisis arrived as I was preparing to go on my birthday adventure to Minnesota. I've been planning for quite some time to spend my b-day along the North Shore of Lake Superior, playing in the rivers and waterfalls. However, with everything going on, I had to cancel that trip. The thought of airports, unfamiliar places, bright lights, and constant sensory stimulation feels impossible right now. Thankfully, I was able to get refunds for most of my reservations.

The outer adventure I planned for my birthday is no longer available to me. Instead, I find myself on an unexpected inward journey through an entirely different landscape. It isn't the birthday gift I would have chosen, but I am beginning to receive it as a gift from Spirit, a different kind of pilgrimage into the next year of my life.

This experience also made me postpone my Heart Chakra events. I’ve never done that before! But I couldn’t focus on marketing and I definitely couldn’t look at a computer screen to host the event. Rather than cancel, I moved the Heart of Belonging event to August 29, 2026. Here’s a link with more info about that if you would like to attend. Let's gather, heal & connect around the radiant heart of love together. Link to Learn More

Navigating the Darkness

This experience is reminding me that the Road of Trials is not a detour from the Hero’s Journey. It is the Hero’s Journey! We tend to imagine the hero climbing the mountain, summoning courage, overcoming obstacles, reaching the summit, and claiming some hard-won strength. And yes, sometimes the journey looks like that.

But sometimes the path leads downward...into the valley of uncertainty and into the darkness of the Underworld. Spirit is reminding me that darkness carries its own wisdom. Seeds germinate beneath dark soil. A fetus develops in the darkness of the womb. Stars are born in vast reaches of dark space. So much becoming happens beyond the reach of light.

The Road of Trials asks us to encounter the full landscape of becoming: both mountain and valley, illumination and shadow, expansion and contraction, birth and death, certainty and mystery. Light and darkness are not adversaries; they are both necessary aspects of wholeness.

I am trying to remember this as I walk this stretch of my own Heroic Journey of Evolution. There is a part of me that wants to hurry through this trial, and get my eyes back, get back to work, get back outside, and back into the light. But here I am. in the dark. Being asked to do work I might never have encountered in the light.

The Wisdom of the Darkness

I do not know what wisdom I'll carry out of this journey through the darkness or who I will be when I emerge. For now, my work is simply to stay in relationship with what is here, to receive the care that is offered, to listen to my body, and to honor the darkness without abandoning my love of the light.

I am learning that not every obstacle on the Hero's Journey is overcome by pushing harder, climbing higher, or summoning more strength. Some trials ask us to stop striving. To loosen our grip. To receive rather than achieve. To surrender to the terrain we find ourselves in and trust that surrender, too, can be a courageous way of moving through the journey.

As I cross the threshold into another year of life, perhaps that is enough. Not to conquer the darkness. Not to rush back toward the light. But to become more whole in my relationship with both, and to trust that my journey is unfolding, and even here, in the uncertainty, something is still becoming.

Questions for the Journey

• What Road of Trials are you walking right now, and what might this terrain be asking of you?

• Where in your life are you being invited to strive less, loosen your grip, or surrender to what is?

• Where are you being asked to receive rather than achieve or give?

• What resources, allies, practices, or inner strengths are helping carry you through this season of your life?

• What might be quietly germinating in the darkness of your own life, even if you cannot yet see what is becoming?

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