A Place of Light

If you sit in the middle of any room in the dark with a single light placed in the middle of the floor, you will notice shadows of every object in that room, including your own.

You may see the shadow of a ceiling fan.

The shadow of a chair.

The shadow of a coat hanging on the wall.

The shadow of your hand as you hold it up into the air.

And you realize that you cannot know light without darkness. The beauty of the inter-tangling of the two is beyond what most of us can imagine because we are so conditioned to believe that darkness is something we should be ashamed of having; something that we should work towards ridding ourselves of, but never shown how. Yet, how can we know and appreciate light for what it is unless we have darkness to compare it to? Not that we need to experience darkness in its fullest. Even the slightest of shadows gives us an idea of what darkness is like. And it’s at this moment we also realize that we need not sit a random object of light in the middle of the room to cast the shadows out of their places… because the only light we ever need is already inside of us.

We are all the light we could ever hope for.

Our light sometimes gets shut off when our energy dwindles down to almost nothing and we conserve it to keep ourselves alive; fight-or-flight mode, but I like to refer to it as dark-or-light mode. After a while, we end up forgetting that the light was ever on. Remembering that light and crawling through the darkness to turn it back on can be one of the hardest feats we ever come up against, but once its power brightens once more, we notice that the darkness isn’t so dark anymore.

To go about life as if our weaknesses or faults outweigh our strengths is a way of life nobody should be living.

Our weaknesses are on the same scale as our strengths.

Our faults with our greatness.

And when we live true to ourselves, you will see it all as perfect.

Every morning when I wake up, I wonder how my day will go. I have grown to realize that I can live in the light if I choose to, and I can succeed through the difficult extensions of myself.

They are all parts of me that make me whole. Each of these parts makes me who I am just as much as my humor, my compassion, and my grace. My so-called “weaknesses” mean just as much to me as my strengths, because without them my strengths would be meaningless. Without darkness, how could we ever know light? It’s about taking advantage of your good times, loving yourself through your hard times, and embracing every ounce of who you are.

Despite the traumas I have experienced, despite the weaknesses I feel I have, despite the flaws they have conditioned me to think I hold, I know how capable I am when I believe in myself enough.

BECAUSE of my traumas, I have triumphs.

BECAUSE of my weaknesses, I have strengths.

BECAUSE of my flaws, I have gifts.

One may be more in the light while the other is sitting back in the shadows, but you can not have one without the other to balance it out. How could you know or even take pride in your accomplishments if your failures didn’t first give you an idea of what accomplishing something meant? We can forever try to deny the darkness within our lives, but it will always be there. How we place ourselves within it is what matters. We can make the choice to continue keeping our eyes and heart closed, match shadow for shadow, and come from a place of darkness... or we can make the choice to open ourselves up, give purpose to the darkness, and instead come from a place of light.

I understand the confusion some may carry over the fact that certain situations just do not give off feelings of light - and you’re right. They don’t.

Pedophiles, murderers, rapists, and other people on the same level of frequency haven’t known true light for a good amount of their lives. People like this are full of darkness and the small amount of light from those around them cast terrifying shadows and so the only thing they can think of doing is casting more darkness onto those lights to drown out the shadows scaring them.

The worst thing we could ever do is to succumb to their darkness. We allow their darkness, no matter in which way they throw it onto us, to become our darkness and we pass that darkness onto others and the chain continues to grow. Even when something tragic happens, responding with darkness is never the answer. Even through our pain, our grief, our sadness, darkness will never fulfill those parts of ourselves that are hurting. The best thing we can do for ourselves and everyone around us is to keep ourselves always responding with light.

I don’t want there to be a misconception that when you respond with light, you allow everyone bad in your life to “get off the hook”. Because that is far from the truth. It is more so about letting YOURSELF off the hook. You’re casting your light onto these other people, yes, and they will continue to drown you in their own darkness, but when you come from a true place of light, no matter what you’re experiencing, you're telling yourself: “The light in me is stronger than the darkness in anything else.” It is such a freeing reality.

And let’s say that the darkness is unbearably strong, and it consumes you. Take a deep breath and remember, the light is still there inside of you to turn on again whenever you’re ready. But it has to be a choice. It is always a choice to stay inside of darkness or to bring yourself back to a place of light. A few may become upset at this and ask: “You really think I am choosing to stay inside of darkness?” Your pain may be so great that you may think you have no choice, but there is a choice in everything. You can stay inside your pain because it is comfortable and you’re used to the consistency of it. Or you can add discomfort on top of your pain and work your way out of it. There is always a choice and we eventually have to take responsibility for what we choose.

I lived my life in the shadows for far too long, and every day I wallowed in my self-pity and blamed others. I pointed fingers at all the wrong things that people in my life had put upon me as a child and how damaged I became. But as an adult I could see that it didn’t matter how damaged I was, I was making the choice to stay in that damage. My pain was so large and so familiar that realizing it was a choice was beyond my understanding. And when I opened myself up to see it was my choice to stay where I was all along, and it could have been my choice to leave that place long before now, it overwhelmed me with emotions. I allowed myself to grieve after all the years I spent in the dark, but I didn’t keep myself in that grief. I allowed myself to grieve, regain myself, and then move forward.

It took a lot of mental, emotional, spiritual practices to get myself used to being in this place again. Little by little it became as familiar as the old place I was in. I was consciously choosing the light in all areas of who I once was and who I was becoming.

I came to see that the light inside of me was still there and I needed to just flip on the switch.

Big energy love,

Asia, The Colorful Writer