We all
deal with challenges in our lives. Maybe
you call it Chaos or Crisis or Drama.
When we meet resistance, challenges and blocks in our lives, it may send
us tumbling into the dark abyss of the unknown.
We may lose fingernails trying to catch a grip on the rocky walls of the
tunnel or just fall in a tailspin with nothing to grasp.
But
the fall may be exactly what we need in order to shake us out of our self-sabotaging
thoughts and actions. It may be the call
for leaving the security of what we know behind because it’s not helping us to
grow. Security is that which is
familiar, not necessarily pleasant. A crisis
can be a call to action, to trust ourselves even when the world is lobbing
lemons at us.
I
know that going to the “dark place” isn’t applauded in our society. Generally, people think we’re weak, crazy, or
unhinged if we do. But in truth, by
denying that part of ourselves, that Dark Space inside, we are denying our
whole selves! It’s like the movie, Pleasantville,
a town where nothing changes. The temperature and weather are always nice, and it
never rains. Sex is an unknown word, passion is outdated, and the most intimacy
anyone sees is when people touch hands. But we know that’s not reality. We need contrast in order to see the beauty
of life and the fullness of ourselves.
By experiencing deep sadness, we can recognize great love when it
appears.
The dark part of us isn’t evil. It’s just the space that holds all the
untruths about us. And these ‘untruths’ were birthed from perceptions of our
childhood experiences based on what we saw outside ourselves such as angry looks,
hurtful words, and/or striking hands. We
thought and felt that we were bad, useless, helpless, rejected, abandoned when
these things happened. And they did
happen in some form or another. It made
us believe we weren’t worth of anything associated with love. But we didn’t
know any better. We didn’t have the
experience and knowledge to understand that no matter what happened to us, it
did not change us! So the dark
space is full of lies encrusted with pain, sadness and anger.
But here lies the power locked
inside us. The darkness offers up an
opportunity to change our paradigms, these patterns that repeat in our lives
day after day based on what is false.
Denying the dark side of ourselves is what will weaken us, bend us, and
torture us. Going into it allows for
redefining our relationship with ourselves, to undo the beliefs that we formed
that had us believing we weren’t enough: smart enough, nice enough, capable
enough, tall enough, slim enough. ENOUGH
of that.
Our mind and body cries for
balance, to bring light to the dark with courage as our lantern. Yes, it does take courage to defy what we think
we know is our worth. But once we’ve
regained the truth of what and who we are, always worthy, always deserving,
always imperfectly perfect, we change the way we feel not only about ourselves
but about how we see ourselves in the world.
And we then open up to the love that surrounds us in life as we now look
with our inner eyes, healed and much more whole.
