“What the Dark Room Showed Me”
— A Personal Account from Phoenix White

“The Darkness Begins”

A couple of days ago, I went into a 3-day darkroom retreat.

And let me be clear: it’s not for the weak.

No phone. No screens. No family. No outside world. No “let me just check one thing.” No comfort rituals. Just darkness… with a group of people I didn’t know (outside of the facilitators).

At first, it felt like getting dropped into a cave.

Then something strange happened.

I started loving that I was completely unseen physically… but somehow deeply seen. Like my energy had nowhere to hide and nothing to perform for. Just truth. Presence. Rawness.

Here’s the part that still blows my mind:

Even though there was zero light, I remember everything in full color.

Every conversation. Every workshop. Every healing moment.

I couldn’t even see my own hands in front of my face… and yet my memory recorded it like HD film.

“Three Things the Dark Revealed”

The darkroom showed me a lot, but these three hit the hardest:

1) My obsession with “perfect” has been killing my momentum.  

Not my standards. Not my excellence. Those stay.  

But the perfection thing? The fear of not being great? The endless polishing instead of finishing and putting it out?

That’s just fear dressed up as “high standards.” Perfectionism as a socially acceptable excuse for incompletion.

So I’m releasing it. Fully.

2) The people in my life need to become more of a priority again.  

Not as an afterthought. Not squeezed between tasks. Not “when things calm down.”  That’s unacceptable.

So I’m upping it:  

Seeing my parents more.  Although I try to talk to them everyday, They are getting older. I need to hug them more. 

Scheduling uninterrupted time with my kids and my partner.  You know the ones that are there for me at my worst and my best. They deserve more. 

Having fun. Letting love actually land.  

Prioritizing my friends and nurturing relationships outside of just work. 

I’m more committed to living life instead of just working life. 

3) There was still trauma residue in my body that needed to be mourned and moved.  I’m a tough cookie. Always have been.

But the darkroom gave me space to grieve the last remaining debris that had been locked in my cells like it was “fine.” Like it didn’t matter. I had no idea I had been so traumatized. Because I have conditioned myself so well to be unbothered. But obviously my body didn’t think so.

I realized how much I’ve been through. The things I’ve seen. The things I’ve survived. And honestly? I had forgotten parts of it.  

In the dark, I was shown why. And it was the answers and confirmation I didn’t know I still needed.

“What I Saw in the Darkness”

And then I saw them.

Ancestors. Beings. Past-life versions of me. From this world and others. Surrounding me.

Light moved through the space like living lightning stems, branching in every direction, scrubbing me. Aggressively. Precisely. Bright. Vivid. Real. It was so bright. All of them, I saw all of their faces surrounding Me. Healing me with ancient power. I thanked them for being there. As I’ve never seen them all at the same time. 

After they were done, I was asked to go in fetal position… and be reborn.

And I did.

I found myself crying. Singing. Writing page after page in the dark. I saw everything.

“How I Came Back Changed”

There’s so much more I could say, but I’ll leave you with this:

As leaders, we don’t get to skip the inner work and expect the outer world to stay stable.

Everything hiding in the dark comes to the light when you finally make it a priority.  

Every seed is nurtured in the dark. Don’t fear it.

Special thank you to Jay English @honorsyoga