Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Today is the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year.  It is one of my favorite days, actually.  I like it almost as much as the summer solstice.  I like these special days because they represent the perfection of nature, the perfect balance of Source energy. They represent the polarity of darkness and light, out of the darkest day, the light returns. Tomorrow, the day will be ever so slightly longer than the night.  

Looking at the natural cycles of darkness and light in nature is a wonderful metaphor for the darkness and light of the journey of being a Spiritual Being having a human experience, for part of that journey is learning to navigate the polarities of dark and light.  If you are reading this, then you are probably on a path of personal transformation---a path of consciously choosing and creating your life the way you want it to be, by letting go of the beliefs others projected onto you and tuning in to your Source energy, your Intuitive voice.  When we work to become who we truly are, living from our Source Energy, living in alignment with the same energy that makes the perfect cycles of Nature, those beliefs that take us away from our Source inevitably surface: Those points of darkness, those moments when we lose our way.

What if you believed that your personal points of darkness were just as perfect as the winter solstice?  What if you believed that allowing and embracing the feeling that seems frightening, or dark, will birth a new part of your Light?  

You say, “Why am I feeling so bad?  I’ve been working at this for so long?”  Or, “How can I ever create the life I really want?  I feel so damaged?” Or, “My anxiety is just too much.  I think I will get some antidepressants.” The points of darkness surface at the moment of turning toward the Light.  Another way of saying this is that the ego surfaces at the point of your expansion into true alignment with your Source energy.  

This is an aspect of the life-long journey of transformation.  You don’t finally get there and never have any more points of darkness.  Louise Hay, one of the original leaders of the personal growth movement, recently wrote about finding within herself, at the age of 76 (!) a part of her frightened Child, which surfaced when she decided to take ballroom dancing lessons.  Louise didn’t run from her fear, or pretend it wasn’t there.  She explored, embraced and loved anew, on a still deeper level, the Child inside, then went on to enjoy her dancing!  She had to allow that vibration of fear to surface, she had to feel it and acknowledge it in order to clear it and move into greater Joy.  This is how it works.  Now, Louise has been doing this for a very long time!  She is aligned most of the time.  But when she started a new adventure, a little fear surfaced.

It is essential, if your goal is to heal on the deepest level, to enter into the difficult feelings, with a conscious awareness of exploring them for their Soul’s lesson, and to return back from them into the truth of who you really are.  Only then, can you know that they have no power over you.  Only then, can you retrieve the gift of the Light embedded in the illusion of darkness.  The sole reason to feel the darkness is to realize that it is not true.  What a wonderful awareness to get!

The past is simply a vibration of energy.  The past is only in your present life when you have not yet cleared its vibration.  The vibration occurs out of the beliefs created because of circumstances beyond your control as a child.  But when the beliefs still run rampant in the unconscious mind, creating underlying feelings of unworthiness, anxiety, or shame, in order to release the vibration of those emotions, which are held in place by the beliefs, you must feel them with the conscious intent to release them and the beliefs that cause them.  If you feel them without this conscious intent, no healing will happen.  You will simply be keeping the darkness in place, and keeping yourself unhappy.

Are you afraid of getting lost in the feeling?  Many people are.  This will not happen when you understand that your Divinity is what’s real.  You must take time to contemplate this truth.  The hard feelings from the past are simply a vibration that keeps you from being aligned with your Divinity.  They feel familiar and therefore true.  In David Hawkin’s powerful book Power Versus Force he says, “In the process of examining our everyday lives we can find that all our fears have been based on falsehood.  The displacement of the false by the true is the essence of the healing of all things visible and invisible.”

So if you enter the difficult feelings with this strength of knowing, you will be the warrior, whose purpose is to find the truth of who you are, to separate out the false beliefs, the painful past.  You will transmute that energy, let it go.  You cannot let it go if you are not conscious of it.  And I don’t mean to analyze it.  That is what traditional therapy does.  By being conscious of the energy, I mean to fully feel it, locate the beliefs causing it, and then let it go.  This can happen in a matter of minutes when you are focused with the intent to find the Light within the darkness, and with practice.

Let’s say your darkness feels like powerlessness.  Powerlessness is the most frightening feeling there is, the lowest emotional vibration.  Generally, this feeling occurs in our vibration either during infancy or during some sort of trauma.  Let’s say you are just beginning to feel this feeling because until now, you have been covering it over with such things as a high-level career, caretaking others, seeking love and approval, or through food.  Let’s say you just experienced another failed relationship.  Your hopes for love are dashed again.  The powerless feeling surfaces.  You interpret it as, “Something is wrong with me.” You do this automatically because it is your programming.  But, now, you realize that you have a choice over how you feel.  In this moment, in this point of darkness when the feeling surfaces and overwhelms, you have a choice.

You can remember that you are Divine.  You find words to remind you of this.  You find the place inside yourself that knows this, even though the powerlessness rises up.  You then have another choice.  You can surrender to the feeling.  You can feel it fully, extracting all of its visions, images, and voices.  Or you can push it down by calling a friend, eating, going on the Internet to search for another match.

“Can’t I just release the feelings without feeling them?  Can’t I just have some healer take them out for me?  Can’t I just change my circumstances, work really hard, find my soulmate, my dream job, triple my income and those feelings will simply dissipate?”

I believe that everything that arises is for our learning.  Everything.  Even what we consider to be suffering.  When you really know that you are Infinite, that you are a Spiritual being having a human experience, when you practice embracing your points of darkness and learning from them, they no longer overwhelm.  You begin to realize that what seems like suffering is a prelude to spiritual evolvement.   

Out of the darkness comes the light.  Seeds need the dark in order to germinate.  When I sprout my mung beans, I must put the jar in the cupboard where it’s dark.   Think of your painful, heartbreak feelings, such as powerlessness, as the kind of darkness that births the Light, which is what they are.  The pain is only pain because the beliefs causing it are false, therefore creating misalignment with your Spiritual self, with the non-physical part of who you are.

This time of year, the time of greatest darkness, is also the time of the birth of our Divine ideas.  There are always Divine ideas embedded within what seems like darkness.  There are always expansive parts of your Self, wanting to be born.  So, if you have been feeling difficult feelings, allow the beauty of the natural cycles of the universe to support you to embrace the darkness, to welcome it, knowing that your Light will be what you become conscious of when you return from the darkness.  Know that you will always return to the Light.  It is inevitable.  

Faith is the bird that sings before the dawn.


copyright 2007 Nancy Caroline Swisher is a Personal & Spiritual Life Coach and Certified Inner Bonding Facilitator.  She can be reached for individual coaching and Inner Bonding sessions at 319-338-7833 or nancyswisher@aol.com.