Maybe it is just really, really bad. Maybe it is Uranus return. Maybe it is the Karma of lifetimes being visited upon you, unfolding a heavy blanket of darkness. Maybe it is the end days you tell yourself.
But whatever it is you know you are in it. You can feel it and smell it.
There are times in our lives when opportunities and ease are not our companions. When we are faced with hardship or struggles without any outs. When disease or injury blow apart our normal lives, or depression and anxiety take hold as if with the jaws of a Pitbull.
We feel as if there are no choices available to us.
What are we to do then, here in this hardship?
I usually will try to avoid feeling that sinking truth of the dark storm brewing. Instead of positive thoughts the negative synchronicities pile up in groups of 3 or disagreements flow out of friendships and create hollow deal breakers.
We desperately look for a break in the storm.
It could be heartache, loss or a feeling of doubt that is butchering our insides. To sit with these feelings we find it harrowing, almost destroying. But why? Where is that we have learned that to be with all of ourselves (meaning the full spectrum of our emotions) does not serve us?
Are there no insights in grief or sadness?
Here is what I have learned in dark moments that have no end:
- Feel the feeling. Do not report what you are feeling to yourself, for example, “I am so scared or I hate myself.” Instead, move towards the feeling, how do you feel?
- Do not become entrapped in a story. Keep your head clear. In other words avoid the “he said” “she said” narration that typically happens when you tell a story.
- Listen to understand what is happening inside of you. It is in these inner experiences that true emancipation is possible. Here is a storm breaker meditation. Read through this exercise a few times so that you can practice it without interruption:
Take a deep breath into your body and breathe in all that you yearn for: light, love, ease, beauty. Allow it to enter with your breath. Take a few more breaths in this way to steady your being. Now on your next breath close your eyes and imagine white light flowing through you from the universe. A beautiful, radiant light moving through you and out through your belly button/solar plexus area and out to the sky. Give yourself a few moments to adjust your senses to perceive the energy of the light.Continue breathing and extending the light.
On your next deep breath ask the darkness that is affecting you to take a form for you. It could come as a symbol or an object or a feeling. Wait a little while and see what shape it takes and discern what it feels like: heavy or light, constricting, familiar and so on. Once you have perceived the form/energy of the darkness ask it what gift it wants from you to come into balance and harmony. The gift can come in the form of a symbol or object, color, feeling etc. Tune into, feel it.
Now imagine this gift coming in from the universe through the top of your head and out through your belly to the darkness. Observe what happens. Does the form of darkness change? Continue extending the gift until there is a palpable shift in the energy or form of the darkness. Extend a little more of the gift to the darkness and release it into the light.
Great.
Now breathe.
How do you feel? Clearer? Lighter? Make a note of this shift in energy and return to this feeling if dark clouds begin to gather.
There is nothing in the universe that does not respond to consciousness/light. We can transform the darkest of days into experiences of meaning and valuable lessons. By choosing to use our consciousness we can find our way back to wholeness, but remember it is an unwavering wholeness that dissolves perceptions of separation and victimhood mercilessly.
Be brave — you are AWAKE.This is your body, your breath and your life to live.Know that in the darkness we can be the light and the within the scariest of storms we can be the very lightning that strikes.
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