Think back to your first descent into the abyss all those years ago. You were a raw rookie then, barely equipped, with hardly any skills to help you negotiate the dark, dank regions.

No one had handed you a map. No one had told you that the shadows down there sometimes wear the faces of people you love, or that the silence has a way of amplifying every doubt you’ve ever carried.

It was no surprise that you came back touchy and scarred, blinking at the daylight, wondering if you’d left some essential part of yourself behind in the murk.

But here’s what I hope you’ll notice: In each stint in the underworld since then, you’ve gained more proficiency at remembering who you are even when you feel utterly lost.

You’ve learned to keep a small flame burning in your chest no matter how thick the darkness gets.

You’ve discovered that you can be frightened and resourceful at the same time. Fear doesn’t have to cancel out your cunning, your tenderness, or your sly refusal to be defeated.

In fact, I suspect that somewhere along the way you crossed a crucial threshold.

You learned the difference between two kinds of pain: 1. the repetitive, unnecessary pain that just grinds you down and teaches you nothing; 2. and the fertile, useful pain that rejuvenates and empowers, the kind that breaks you open only so more life can pour in.

You stopped mistaking every hardship for punishment. You began to sense which descents were initiations in disguise.

And so you discovered the secret that the bravest souls eventually learn: A well-navigated journey into the underworld can sharpen your soul’s vision and enrich your creative passion.

The darkness, it turns out, isn’t merely an enemy to survive. It’s also a teacher, a forge, a strange and generous womb. You go down as one version of yourself and you climb back up as someone deeper, more textured, more real.

Congratulations on the upgrade. You’ve earned every hard-won degree of it.