Ending at the Beginning
Shining the light on the roots of kindness inside those we never knew—and never knew us.
Dear Kindred Souls,
Healing isn’t a straight line—it’s a rhythm, a refrain, a returning home. In my sessions, we begin where we will one day end. In between, there is discovery, depth, and light—transformation and healing—giving birth to a new beginning.
My sessions often start with a guided meditation to prepare my clients for the deeper work ahead. It's like a refrain to a song of life about this journey we're on together, highlighting our capacity to find joy, even when we‘ve lived so long in darkness.
It‘s a song for both of us, changing each time we listen or speak what lives in our hearts. It's an offering of hope and self-belief—an invitation to embark on this journey together to discover the love I know to be true within.
As the music fades into silence, I say, "Just let me know when you are here, and we will start. That's the place where we‘ll begin our work today, which is also where we will end. What happens in between may take you places you haven’t been before, knowing you are not alone. I am holding the light until you find your own, inside and in the world around you.”
This is the work of healing—a song of stepping into the unknown, trusting we are not alone, and finding ourselves home in the end. Often in ways we never expected. Often, with treasures discovered alongside the pain.
Little one, may the light guide you home to the person you were always meant to be. I’ll be there in the joy and the darkness, the one you didn't get to know. Your true self waits in the shadows, reaching out for the hand we didn’t know how to grasp—only now knowing what was missing and can hold—not letting go.
For all of you, this blog is my way of returning to the tree I hope to have sat under with my grampa, William. Its roots are my core, and the branches reach out to all of you for connection and meaning. I offer what I’ve learned and listen for what we might still discover together about the pain of the generations preceding us that we never got to know, but which still hides inside us.
Thank you for being here, returning home to the place we never really left—the light of invisibility, where we begin again. Healing spirals down to our core, then takes us upward to meet the mysteries of life in the stars, where we see who we are becoming, not who someone else thought we were supposed to be.
Now, looking again, I can see the love in my grampa’s kind eyes. Not just the fear he carried, trying hard to keep me from seeing. He never could set it down in the way I know he wanted to—and that I wanted, too. But I can now, in a way that we both needed, healing the wounds of the past, seeing them rather than passing them down to the next generation.
From there, we are ending at the beginning—in our wholeness—in forgiveness.
With freedom and grace,
Marc
Comments or questions? Email me at mcecilvt@aol.com. Feel free to share these words—and this blog—with anyone you hold, or long to be held by, in the light of invisibility.
Dr. Cecil is a licensed psychologist, certified AEDP supervisor, approved EMDR consultant, and senior CSRT consultant. He specializes in treating complex relational, developmental, and transgenerational trauma, bringing therapy to life through heartfelt stories and images of connection and healing that emerge from the light of invisibility.