Exploration
I have found that a key element to all of this for me is getting into the heart of what exactly is ‘darkness’. Ego monkey mind has attached a rather ominous quality to darkness, but it isn’t full of evil maliciousness. Darkness is essentially all of the ‘stuff’ we don’t want to look at.
Darkness includes secrets, repressed emotions, fears and judgments; all of the things that seem safer to avoid than to release. Exploring the darkness doesn’t mean airing all of your dirty laundry, either. It means looking honestly and vulnerably at the parts of you that helped create who you are in this moment. Rejecting the secrets that are kept only makes them scarier and bigger. Continually repressing emotions only exacerbates the feeling of exploding; fearing what might just happen if you let yourself feel. Living in a state of fear prevents you from embracing the fullness of life and all of the beauty around you. Holding judgments, especially when they are against yourself, prolongs suffering, keeping you from moving beyond the limits of a narrow perception. Darkness is breeding ground for disconnection.
We all have secrets. Everybody. No one gets through life without having stories, events, or something that would “ruin” them if somebody found out. This is shame talking. In reality, if we share our secret(s) with safe, trusted people, we find out that we are not alone. We learn that we all have experiences that have led us to repressing emotions and judging our very worth. Sometimes the secret is a matter of beating ourselves up for a single choice we made, typically out of a fear response. We keep secrets because we think it is going to keep us safe and protected. This may be so for the short term, but not true for the long run.
Sometimes there are secrets that are kept because of fear of how we will be perceived by others if they knew. I can attest to this. I have had intense personal experiences that an exceptionally limited number of people know about. There is a part of me that gets the sense that sharing my experience may very well be the invitation to others to accept some less-than-pretty experiences they have had that are ready to be explored and released. The other voice involved reminds me that sharing the information could color people’s perspective as to whether or not they would want to continue their work with me. The most interesting element is that my deep struggle is what allowed me to become the person that I am, allowing my natural gifts of healing and intuition to become more present and refined. I am the intuitive healer/musician that I am today because of what I went through. There is no doubt in my mind about that whatsoever. But fear is still attached to the perception of others. This is the biggest piece of my darkness that I am afraid to fully bring into the light. All in divine time…
It feels safer/easier for me to tap into repressed emotions. This wasn’t always the case, but I am finding myself to be more gentle and curious instead of ashamed and embarrassed. I can admit to putting up a defensive wall instead of allowing myself to receive love and affection. I also find that I can get mad and judgmental when I get scared. And being scared can be triggered by worrying what someone thinks of me in any given moment. With that, I can share that I am now more able to notice when it happens and ask for divine support in being gentle in the moment. I can acknowledge that this is a pattern of behavior that is a work in progress. Exploring the darkness takes time…patience, gentleness, love, curiosity…and it takes the desire to have a relationship with my body. I need to notice what is going on in my body-where is it tight, antsy, edgy-and use that information as my safety guide. The more in tune I am with my body, the more I can allow the emotions to be present and move on. After all, emotions are energy in motion. They have an innate desire to remain in motion…it’s our job to let that happen.
The exploration of the darkness yields beautiful rewards, namely freedom. There is a sense of liberation that happens when we no longer think we need to hide from who we are. We lived life. We experienced it. Not all of it leads us to sainthood. But it does lead us to our own divinity. I like to hold this concept in conjunction with the yin-yang symbol. In the light, there is always dark. In the dark, there is always light. There is constant flow between the two. They flow into and out of each other. There is no beginning and no end. It creates a perfect circle. A perfect union.