"But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ." – The Little Prince
When we break it down, when we look at it, the darkness… It’s light too.
It’s hard. It feels scary. But when we take the time to look at the darkness (what I’ll define here as fear, forgetfulness, the things we prefer not to look at, the parts of ourselves we don’t like but may call out in others, and the emotions we try to suppress), we find that it’s just light reversed.
Carl Jung, the great Swiss psychotherapist said ““Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”
Parts work, shadow work, inner child work… These are all modalities to help us recognize and unravel ourselves from our own darkness. Truly, the darkness is the cage that holds our inner children, children that are screaming at us for attention and love, buried beneath the protections we’ve developed to try to suppress their pain.
Take this for an example:
The other day I was journaling from the part of my own “Internal Punisher”. I know some of you reading this have this part, too. The part of you that will verbally beat you down to a pulp and leave you on the floor for dead… if only you didn’t have a dog and a (very) tiny voice in your head saying “Get up. Go to bed.” At the core, that very shadowy part of me doesn’t want me to feel the unbearable pain of feeling confused, lost, scared, and unlovable which honestly, WAS unbearable for me to feel alone as a child. The difference is that I’m now a safe adult able to be with myself through challenging emotions, and I can sit with these very young emotions that my parents just couldn’t handle when I was small (because my parents were just kids with their own suppressed emotions too). And as I worked with this protecter-firefighter part (to use IFS terminology), the last thing it said to me was, “I’m not bad, I’m not a villain, I’m just trying to keep you safe (from aforementioned emotions).”
This doesn’t make me like or approve of a lot of what is happening in the U.S. But it does keep me from hating the people making some of the decisions, which saves me from feeling the emotion in my body. Actually, it creates some empathy. They’re a bunch of scared kids, unfortunately running the show, yes. But what I know about kids is that punishment doesn’t work. Telling them they’re wrong or bad can make them more defensive/protective (this is true for my shadows too). Understanding helps. Boundaries* help too (my Internal Punisher can still have a say but is not allowed to berate me.). This isn’t the answer, I know. But remember…
Darkness is really just light that’s turned on itself. Fear is Love that’s forgotten its truth. Pain exists only in the places we haven’t allowed the sun to shine. In the end, it’s really all just light.
*Dr. Becky Kennedy recently posted about this. Obviously, its a little different for adult kids, but not that different. “No.” , is still a complete sentence.
Sometimes, when it’s hard for me to have faith, when I don’t believe in God/Love/The Universe or that any Divine Being could ever really have my back, and I feel like I’m all alone in this world to figure everything out, I like to remember…
The sun is located at the exact distance away from the earth to allow for life, for me to breathe and the trees grow. Each day, the moon gently directs the ocean tides, pulling them in, pulling them out. In the spring, the rains will come, preparing the dirt for my favorite mountain wildflowers to bloom by summer. Each fall, the trees turn gold before letting go and the wildflowers will die and winter will come again. That every season, there is a the perfect cycle of rest, growth, thriving, and dying- and always an opportunity for rebirth. Each day, each year, brings perfect harmony between dark and light, allowing for that cycle to happen. And tonight, as the sun sinks down in the horizon, without me lifting a finger, the stars will come out to shine and say “hello”, reminding me that I am not alone. That somehow, through the destruction of a star mixing with the energy of light, with magic, and forged through the sacredness of my mother’s womb, I am here. I am here on this miraculous planet with mountains and rivers and canyons and deserts and birds and elephants and dogs and cows and sunsets and sunrises and people and animals to love and who love me too. And then I think, “Wow. I really am loved” and I don’t feel like I’m alone anymore.
(I of course remember too, that I have the best Pacer ever, a pure being who loves me unconditionally, and somehow, miraculously, we found each other in this big, crazy world-truly, states away-and on a path to me that didn’t really make sense, until it did.)
I’ve always been intrigued by the feeling of longing. What is it that makes us reach for our phones or a glass of wine when we’re feeling lonely? What is it we are seeking when we start a text to our ex (hopefully to go back and delete it before we hit “send”)? What is the void we’re trying to fill, and has it always been there? What is the proverbial hole in our hearts that we speak of, and how did it get there? What is the missing piece, and when did we lose it?
What I do know is that this sacred longing cannot be filled by achievement, material things, a relationship, a substance, another run or backpacking trip, although these things and doings can temporarily seem to fill or numb it, until they can’t, and we go on chasing again.
The puzzle of longing is one I’m often trying to solve with clients, other seekers who always have a way of leading me deeper on my own journey, guiding me closer to the answer*. It’s the gift (even though the grief) of the end of a relationship, an opportunity to further explore the internal longing… the calling of the soul.
Can you meet yourself here?
Because paradoxically, it might just be feeling your sacred longing and meeting yourself there that Love can come in and heal it.
*A note for other seekers: the gift you offer is your curiosity, is your seeking, and not in always finding or figuring out the answer.
… the problem is, most of us don’t know who we really are. We don’t know how to authentic or how to trust our intuition.
And this is to no fault of our own. From ages 0 to 7, we’re in a brain state similar to hypnosis, and we’re just soaking in our environment. The message we take in, or the meaning we make about events we don’t understand, aren’t consciously accepted. They become our subconscious. So even as we get older and we reject the fear-based religious teachings passed down to us, or say that our parents divorce didn’t affect us, or refuse to pay homage to a materialistic society … well, that’s great, but the problem is, those things weren’t necessarily the problem (I mean they were, but not in the obvious way). The bigger challenge is the subliminal messages and subconscious wiring, the shame-based beliefs we took on about not being enough, feeling unworthy of love, and being certain something is wrong with us.
The good news is that we can, with some committed effort and adamant love (therapy isn’t required, but it sure helps to have someone on your team that can see you with unconditional positive regard), unravel ourselves from those beliefs, seeing them as stories and not reality. Triggers will often lead us to the wound, giving us the opportunity to re-parent ourselves through fears and big emotions. And in the unraveling, in remembering who we were before love was first invalidated, we return home to ourselves. Finally free of the stories running our behavior, we can once again be our authentic selves.
The wild don’t have anxiety, believe in the fear-based thoughts the mind conjures, nor do they pay homage to the ego, have ties to achievement, or fears of not being enough, especially when following their heart, a path that might not lead to outward acclaim. The wild are true only to their souls.
At the same time, the wild are not reckless. They don’t egoically override fear to prove their superiority over it, which ultimately strengthens their ego identity. When making decisions, there’s no debate among the voices in their head, or even if there is, the wild can see them as fears. Instead, the wild use intuition. Their hearts are the only compass they need. They both love life and do not fear death. The wild care only about protecting the innocence of the inner child.
Guided by love and not fear, guided not by the mind but by the soul, the wild are free.
*This phrase was first said to me by Denise Mange, founder of Pet Prana, who is a pet trainer and animal communicator. She said this to me during a session with her after I said that I almost always worry about Pacer when we’re out adventuring. This made me realize that most of my fear voices, “Do we turn back? Do we keep going? Is Pacer happy?”, were mine and not Pacer’s. Pacer is happy just being outside (especially with her pack), and as always, will tell me when she wants to turn or slow down. It’s only the voices, or parts arguing in my head, that in the past would leave me confused. And truly, my fears and my general anxiety/hypervigilance around life have affected Pacer, who can pick up on my stress, causing her to be excessively protective of me. This obviously wasn’t good for her, and because I love Pacer more than anything in the world, forced me to look at myself. Really, Pacer was asking me to step into my own power, to start trusting myself and my intuition again (I’ve done quite a bit of parts work to unravel myself from the thoughts blocking me from my intuition), so we could both return to our wild nature.
Your first mission on earth is to remember, to remember who you really are, overcoming and rising above early childhood conditioning. The second mission is to live life from that place of knowing who you are, the space of expansive love. The third mission is natural, spreading that joy, in whatever way you may choose (there may be no life change at all, just being yourself more) to others humans and beings that inhabit this earth.
It takes consistent, committed effort to move through the dark and reach the light. You can’t just want to heal. You have to choose to heal.
*heal: to make whole , or rather, to return to (remember) wholeness after a period of unconsciousness (forgetfulness).
Many therapies assist in this practice. EMDR works in an almost similar way to psychedelics (So I’ve heard. It’s not a path I have chosen for myself but am somewhat familiar with the research and have heard recounts from several friends.) that does not bypass wounds and fears, but moves through them in a safe and contained way that allows the brain to reprocess memories in healthier fashions. Similarly, IFS helps us understand our (wounded, fearful) parts so they loosen the grip and the higher self can step through and reclaim loving power, as well as your direction in life. Still, the basic principle remains the same…we have to be willing to actively let go of our old stories, programmed beliefs, and negative thoughts*. It’s not going to happen (for most of us) just by praying to get rid of them (believe me, I tried). We have to exert the (free) will to choose it, to choose love over fear, in order to create a new paradigm for ourselves.
*If you feel there is a resistance or block or feeling stuck on your healing journey, I recommend looking at that block, or part wanting you to stay stuck, itself.
When I worked at an addiction treatment center, I remember a staff member there teaching a class. I can’t remember if it was about addiction, fitness (he was a strong, athletic guy), or something else, but I clearly remember him asking, “Do you want to know a new language? Or, do you want to LEARN a new language?” Personally, I’d love to know French. I took several classes on the language in both high school and college. But I never really wanted to learn it, and so I can only recall a few words.
Each of us must honestly ask ourselves this question when embarking on a healing journey. Do we just want to be healed? Or do we want to do the work to heal? We may certainly look like we want to heal when we read all the books, listen to all the podcast, maybe occasionally chat with a therapist or take a workshop (I’m raising my hand here). But sometimes, these are easy and often subconscious ways to bypass actually doing the work. We keep searching for the key to what we’re missing instead of unlocking the potential within ourselves.
Yet let me be clear… choosing to move through and let go beliefs and thoughts we’ve held onto for 10, 20, 30, 40, and even 50+ years is not easy. Personally, I have (somewhat subconsciously) been almost determined to hold on to the belief that I’m not enough, or I’ve just wanted it to be taken away from me without my conscious effort. In the past, I’ve started the process of resisting negative voices in myself and gave up when they got louder, letting the thoughts of failure and imperfections consume me. It wasn’t until an occurrence where my ego led and I overrode a core value, missing an opportunity to experience what I care about most in life*, where I decided “I don’t want to live like this anymore” and I found the strength to not turn back (although there were plenty of falters and half step backs, the determination was just greater).
*This was my proverbial “rock bottom”. It doesn’t just have to be getting a divorce or waking up after a near overdose.
As we move through the dark (here, defined as our pain, wounds, and programmed beliefs), what is necessary to realize, so we can be loving observers as we move through, is that the beliefs and negative stories we hold on to about ourselves are not real. They we given to us each time love was invalidated as a child. If you believe you are a failure, it’s not true, regardless of how many times your mind can conjure examples of how you believe you failed. If you believe you are not enough, it’s not true, no matter how your mind compares yourself to others. Your ego only compares based on a performance value that was given to you and your mind accepted at the time as a way to better fit in to society. Failure is a conjecture of the mind, although it is more likely you’ll miss reaching a goal (or being satisfied by it) if it is not heart aligned or was driven by fear (feelings of unworthiness).
The objective here is not to ignore the thoughts, but to see them clearly: as thoughts. To observe them with the curiosity as a small child observes a leaf on the ground, then continue to keep moving. As emotions come up, the process is similar, we feel them through awareness; not attaching to the emotion, but breathing into it, which allows for it to be witnessed and released. I found parts work extremely helpful in this process, as my mind needed more understanding. In the example above, I could witness the part of my ego that just wanted me to feel better about myself, and the way I could do that was to control how far I could go and push myself. Even though it here it led me to a poor choice, I could see how the part was doing the best it could with what it had learned. I could then insert the compassion of my higher self and reassure the fear (of the part) that I could now love myself unconditionally, empowering myself with the ability to re-take the steering wheel of my life.
The main tool here comes from mindfulness, or being able to witness your experiences and thoughts in the awareness and expanse of love. Love is the answer, my friends. As Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Commit to see your wounds (triggers will lead you there), which are essentially any reasons you have for withholding love from yourself. Your ability to insert love into those dark caves is where true healing can occur. From there, you have the opportunity to start believing what you choose to believe (rather than what you were taught to believe).
As you move through the dark, always remember to keep a steady focus on the light. We’re human. Distractions are not only easy, but ingrained in our society and imbedded in our minds. There is not bigger distraction than our fear-based thoughts. Again, see them, be aware of them, get curious about their roles, but don’t allow them to be the center of your attention.
As a gentle reminder, healing, along with commitment, requires patiences. Many protector parts can get defensive when challenged and some suppressed emotions need time (patience is love) before they feel comfortable enough to arise, trusting that YOU’ve got them…you’ve got your inner child, you’ve got you. It’s okay to take a step back. Sometimes nights can be harder than during the day to come back to a place of clarity. Just know, “this too shall pass”.
Ultimately, remember this. YOU ARE A RAY OF LOVE, a ray of consciousness, a ray of light. That is who you truly are. You are not Mike, Alice, Joe, Patricia…so far, you have most likely been playing the role that those characters have been scripted to have by childhood traumas, religious teachings, and other fear-based education. When you realize this, when you come to know this through your fierce dedication to loving yourself, you have the opportunity to insert your conscious (loving) awareness into the human you embody and create a new story for yourself.
Where do you block love from yourself? Where do you deny your own healing? Where do you become almost defensive in holding on to your mistakes, imperfections, and unworthiness?
Some of us can be so certain, hold such an adamant belief, about the negative judgment we have of ourselves (or others, but usually it’s a reflection anyway). We want to heal, but we simultaneously deny it from ourselves. Any perception that is not of love shows where we are misaligned and block our own divinity from shining through.
Because any other belief is simply a shadow of a ray of light, a shadow of who you really are.
When my older sister passed away, after the brief stage of the ego anger/fight for survival, innocence took over. She was not mad about her early parting, she accepted loved ones at her death bed, allowed us to hold her hand.
Being 36, the same age as when she passed, when she had less than two months to live… I wonder what I would do? Or perhaps, not do.
I have often been driven by ego wants and desires. Not that they are necessarily bad (although sometimes destructive). I have wanted to do things, see things, achieve things before I die. I gotten stuck on destinations and forgotten about the journey. And with that, I have experienced many nights breathing in the shallow breaths of yet another existential pain as time all too quickly passes and what once was has already changed. In those labored prayers, I have often overlooked the fact that my ego is simply fighting for its existence, or at least the existence of others in relation to me. I have changed. They have changed. Life has changed. Or worst, life has changed and people/animals have died and while I have stayed the same.
Yet if I knew, if I knew it was my time to die in a few weeks time, I hope I’d forget about all those wants and desires. Instead, I would hope to follow a similar path as my older sister, who seemed to remember what truly mattered. Maybe I’d go to the mountains a few times if I was able with those closest to me, during the times my ego gets scared, to tap into the peace and love that awaits me. But most likely, I’d spend my dwindling time with family and friends, allowing them to say their goodbyes and let love be shared. I’d want to return to innocence, my belief in true magic, joy, and an existence without fear. The purpose of my death being to light the way for others. To come back to the remembrance that when we die, only love is left behind, for that is all that is real, all that is eternal.
The belief that everything and everyone is good? That we are always loved and inherently enough?
That people act poorly not because they are bad but because they have forgotten love. That we act poorly because we have forgotten who we are. That we have been treated poorly not because of our own fault, but because others have forgotten too*.
Innocence, as @the.alchemist recently said, is different from naiveté. We don’t hang around people who are going to treat us poorly. But we do believe they are inherently good.
Innocence then is, in a sense, freedom. Forgiveness is embedded by innocence. We forgive others for acting out of fear (in particular, the fears of being unworthy, unlovable, and not enough) and forgive ourselves for the same. When not weighted down by fear or shame, we are given the ability to fly. Even in the physical limitation of gravity, our density is less because we let go of the heaviest of emotions, giving ourselves the ability to know that as we move through life, nothing is real besides Love itself.
It is out of innocence that we are born and back into innocence that we will die… (more in part 2).
*Young children often quickly forgive their parents for hurting them, be it emotionally or physically. While some may believe this is bad, it’s often what saves a child from further harm and allows them to move through difficult situations. The problem is that the mind creates a story on how the child must be bad to deserve such behavior and this belief can be carried on to adulthood if there is not quick intervention in childhood.
These men, I am just like them. They blame, I shame. I internalize my hate, They externalize their pain. Me and these men, we are all the same.
Each of these men, lives inside my head.
Trump, he doesn’t really bother me anymore. His bigotry is so outrageous, I can easily call out his show.
Putin scares me a little more. So charming and so smart. He makes me doubt myself, his lies so carefully contrived. Yet void of love, equals void of truth.
Hitler… I dare not tell my parents how many times… how many times he has tried to annihilate my life. Just as he slayed his own innocence, his own artist, he dangerously threatens mine.
Hope. The darkness consumes. So close… Then another part beckons… a dog… a friend… some distant light within.
Keep going. You are meant to be here. Love is on your side. The darkness cannot win. You will shine.
****
(This is part of a much longer poem that I’ve been thinking about but procrastinating on since December.)
Sometimes, my own shame response astounds me in its inappropriateness, even when it consumes me. I spent days feeling shame around a favorite picture of me that a wonderful photographer had taken because I did not wear my favorite bracelet, which was in my pocket. I felt shame after having an amazing outing with Pacer, after realizing I double hit “record” and did not get the video of me skiing with her running free behind me. Sometimes I even get this feeling when I know I’ve made the right decision, it’s just not the one that boosts my ego. And I KNOW it’s ridiculous. Well part of me does. The rest of the voices in my head berate me in various ways: that was so dumb, go back and do it again, be better, try harder, you’re obviously not enough. While I am exhausted by my healing journey and the work I’ve put into it, I can feel my closeness to it. I know there’s a few more feelings to feel, a few more parts to witness, a few more thoughts to observe and walk past. If there ever was a lie, it’s shame, the ultimate but not un-permeable block to love and truth.
A Dog and Her Girl 