Hope Will Open the Door. Faith in Yourself Walks You Through.

I have spent well over four years writing my way through the emotions of this setback.

Glioblastoma was never supposed to be on my bingo card. Yet here I am, still here, still typing, still trying to make sense of a life that cracked open in every direction I never planned for.

I have been crushed. I have been opened. I have grown in ways I never thought I would.

It is tempting to try to wrap all of that in a neat conclusion. To say, “Here’s what it all means,” and pretend that the story is tidy and finished.

But most conclusions are just stories we make up to feel safe.
They sound helpful. They rarely are.

I would rather keep it real and raw.

This work is not easy. It has been the most demanding work of my life.
It has also been the most rewarding.

Finding joy inside this much pain was not something I ever expected. The gratitude I feel for it is hard to put into words. Maybe that is why it has taken me so long to keep chopping through it, one sentence at a time.

Because the truth is this:

We all have our dark caves.

The places inside where we have stacked bricks of shame, fear, and “not enough” into walls we are sure are protecting us.

In reality, those walls are not protection.
They are denial.

We are not just hiding from the world.
We are hiding from our own greatness.

Most of us have been trained, or we have trained ourselves, to believe that playing small is the game plan. Stay quiet. Stay safe. Stay out of the way. Do not want too much. Do not shine too bright.

When I look back, I realize how ridiculous that is.

Regardless of your belief system, nowhere is there a rule that says you are here on this earth, for this short amount of time, to suffer and be a doormat. Not for the world. Not for your circumstances. Not even for your own thoughts.

You are not here to be walked on.
You are here to wake up.

Stepping into a new reality is how we evolve.

It starts when you begin to see yourself as the person you are trying so hard to become. Not someday. Not “when things calm down.” Now.

You move with purpose toward those dark caves.
You stop pretending they are not there.
You walk in on purpose.

Inside, you meet the beast you have been afraid of. The one that whispers:

“You are not enough.”
“You are too much.”
“You are broken.”
“You are a burden.”

You do not defeat that beast with more fear.
You defeat it with love.

Because the love you have for yourself, even if it is just a tiny spark right now, is no match for fear once you let it breathe.

Hope will open the door for you.
Faith in yourself is what gives you the confidence to step through it.

Hope and faith get talked about a lot in religious contexts. That is fine for some people, but personally, I do not believe hope and faith belong only to religion.

I believe they belong to our evolution.

Hope and faith are like street signs.
They help you navigate back to the center of you.

Hope is the sign that says, “There is more for you than this.”
Faith in yourself is the sign that says, “You are allowed to go find it.”

At the center of you is the version of yourself you have been trying to bring to life. The one that is not ruled by fear. The one that is not playing small. The one that knows they are here for more than just surviving the day.

That version of you is not imaginary.
It is waiting for you to show up.

And yes, sometimes the thing that shakes you awake is brutal. A diagnosis. An injury. A loss. A moment when the life you knew is ripped out from under you.

Something will shake you open.
Something will crack the shell.

When that happens, hope will show up. It always does. It might be quiet. It might be a whisper. It might be a single thought that says, “Maybe I am not done yet.”

The question is not whether hope will come.
The question is:

This is where love comes in.

Not the greeting-card kind. Not the “everything is fine” kind.
The kind of love that looks at your fear and says:

“I see you. I know why you are here. But you do not get to drive anymore.”

Self love is not soft.
It is not passive.
It is not pretending.

Self love is choosing to walk into the cave anyway.
It is choosing to feel what you have been avoiding.
It is choosing to believe that you are worth the effort.

On the other side of that fear is the joy you have been searching for.
Not perfect circumstances. Not a life without pain.
A deeper, more honest wholeness.

You will not go back to who you were before.
You are not supposed to.

You will become someone new. Someone more you than you have ever allowed yourself to be.

And from that place, you will find a way to be whole again. Not in spite of what happened to you, but with it woven into your story as proof of how far you were willing to go for yourself.

Hope is not a passive wish. It is a strategy.
Hope will open the door.
Your faith in yourself will walk you through.
Your love for yourself will crush the fear that has been running your life.

Impossible is optional.

You are allowed.