The Light & Dark

The Dark

Entering 2019 all I wanted to do was heal. Heal from the hurt of an unhealthy relationship. One modeled by toxic parental and relational behaviors. I wanted to rid myself of the pain cause by massive self abandonment. The only thing I knew how to do in order to get people to love me. I had finally began to understand the way my choices created the pain I was living in. I finally understood that the only way to remove myself from the cage I had put around myself (while believing I was caged by another) was to find my voice, own my truth and step into my authentic self. But how on Earth was I to do such a thing? I didn't know how. I was terrified.

Like most people facing change... the pain was too great. I couldn't live in that space anymore. It was time to change no matter the cost. And this time the cost just so happened to be my entire life. All of it. Every piece. My friendships, my home, the life I had built for over 10 years was crumbling right before me. Still, I moved forward. The knowing that it was the right thing to do outweighed the fear. A fear so insurmountable, I'd never experienced the likes before. Paralyzing.

I shifted from a place of desire to grow and heal to a place of lost petrification. There I sat for six months. Unable to connect to the life I once knew. Unsure of what the life I was about to create looked like. Frozen. Grief set in with a vengeance. Shame spiraled around me and all of the tools I had once held so close, a support in the darkness, fled from me. I sat helpless. Questioning every decision I had ever made up until that very moment. Wrecked by fear. [F*cking fear. F*cking ego. Always out to try and destroy the light which carries us out of the depths and into alignment.] My practices began to suffer as I felt disconnect slip into my sacred space. I reached for my happy ending but the path alluded me.

Over and over I called myself to the present moment, I sat in meditation, seeking.

Then, one day I realized. All along, I was attempting to force my healing, rush my grieving and in doing so I had caused more suffering. I had made myself believe that I should be 'better' by now, this is after all what I wanted but at the same time I told myself that I wasn't allowed to be happy. How could I possibly move forward under those restraints??

Under those realizations and still in seclusion I began the allowing. I stopped fighting my stillness and as the waves came crashing in I allowed each and everyone to knock me down. I was finally breaking open, wide open.

In that openness, the fear and pain began to subside.

Slowly but surely, strength stepped in and grabbed my hand.

The Light

At times when we are in the depths of our pain, grieving, or in major life transition, it feels impossible to see the light in our situation. It's hard to understand what purpose the pain serves. Too many clouds. Too many tears. Too much anger. TOO. MUCH.

The gift in these seasons of our lives is tricky. We often are drawn to wanting to figure it out. To know how long we'll be here. What the lesson is exactly and how will we ever begin to move forward. This often puts us in resistance to the exposure of the light available in these times. That's because the light present in the darkest moments comes only from surrendering to your suffering. THE HARDEST THING EVER.

During what for me is the biggest and most painful life transition I'd yet to experience the light was fleeting yet ever there. If you can make sense of that. It was always there waiting for me to give in to what was unfolding, surrender to what IS, the reality of the situation. Leaving the home I'd be in for 10 years. Leaving the relationship I'd been in for 13 years. Untying a family unit that I had created. The pain of loss was and still, at times, is so great that it took real and true effort to see my light.

Light in the fact that I chose to break the generational patterning of unhealthy relationship behavior. Light in recognizing that we're given the gift of choice. And our lives are of our making. Understanding that I CAN do very hard things. That no matter how great the pain, due to the laws of Universe, there is an equal and opposite available to me, JOY.

Excitement in knowing that I can undo the limiting beliefs I adopted as a child in order to protect myself.

Feeling unconditional love for my former partner, maybe for the first time, by truly accepting him for him.

Learning to love myself in a way I never have before. Teaching myself to feel worthy of a beautiful and fulfilling life.

Casting aside anger and leaning into a great acceptance for what IS.

Removing the victim hat and recognizing that all of the things in my life that I didn't like were either of my creation, my inaction, my choice or lack thereof.

It was like, “Holy Sh*t. I did this. F*ckkk.”

And then it was like, “Holy Sh*t, I did this! I can UNDO this, too!”

Wow. The freeing feeling that came with understanding I was the only one responsible for where I was lit me up like the sun!

Now, understand, the emotional roller coaster from light to dark and back again is the realest thing ever. But once you have that awakening you cannot go back to sleep. The choice then becomes do I practice everyday undoing. Or do I allow these programs to continue to run my life?

I choose undoing. I choose intention and changing my thought patterns. I choose the rough route that has brought many a break down and spirals of fear I've never encountered before.

Yet, in that very same choice... I choose LIGHT. I choose alignment. I choose ME.