My alarm clock goes off around 6:30 am, and each day it’s been darker and darker – harder and harder to ‘rise and shine’. I click on the little lantern in my oldest daughter’s window to encourage her awake, and beg her not to fall back asleep (while I guiltily steal 10 more minutes in my own room).
Five minutes later, my husband’s alarm goes off, and he groans softly.
Then another five minutes and my youngest daughter’s alarm goes off.
And we all reluctantly ease into the dark day.
I drive the girls to school, grab milk at the grocery store, stop at the post office, come home and finally make my coffee. The sun is rising over the trees. I sit with my journal and write whatever pops into my head… some random form of rhythmic poetry prose and then I write my intentions for the day.
“It’s dark in these souls Dear, hang some lights. Stay above the clouds. Be who you are. Give love.”
This is my intention for today.
We’ve all heard the analogies about Autumn I’m sure. That Death is beautiful, the changing leaves, the foliage stirring outside, and also in our souls. Well, here in the Adirondacks, we’re in the early days of ‘stick season’ – the naked trees stripped and vulnerable around us. They’ll stay bare for many months. Usually around mid May they are fully clothed again in fresh green leaves.
As lovely as Autumn’s foliage can be, the short cycle gives way to naked trees, cold temperatures, dark days, and impending snow. Winter’s coming – can sometimes feel like too much to handle. The darkness forces us inside, and it may be scary in there.
But our job now, is to look for light again.
For the majority of people, myself included, it’s very easy to be wary of the darkness. I string up some more lights, my husband builds a fire most days after returning home from work, and we find warmth and light where we can.
But then there are times when I wake in the middle of the night, restless, uneasy, the dark sky, no moon, cloud cover, sometimes an icy rain falling.
It’s hard to find the light then…
Sit in the dark Sarah.
What is it saying to you?
Darkness is not just a seasonal normality, but something we all deal with on varying levels day to day. And if we don’t pay attention to what that darkness is trying to express, it will be very easy to become consumed by shadows in the night.
Lately I’ve been exploring the idea of darkness being ‘the basement’ if you will.
The subconscious mind…
Have you ever watched the Disney Pixar film, Inside Out?
Reilly, the protagonist, puts a lot of things in the basement that she can’t deal with and make her uncomfortable. Broccoli, grandma’s vacuum, CLOWNS… (seriously, I GET that!!)
So we all do this. We take the things that don’t sit well with us, that hurt, that we’d really rather not think about, and we put them in a box, and seal it up, and send it to the basement. But — it’s not really ‘out of sight, out of mind’.
Often because we’ve made the decision to store this stuff in a box, we literally store it INSIDE OF US. And since we’ve decided to hang on to it, so it doesn’t happen again, we see it again and again, day in and day out. We’re reminded that we don’t like to feel like this. Over and over.
Imagine boxing up clothes that used to fit our skinnier self. We have feelings of shame around our changing body – so we pack up our clothes in that box, send it to the basement, trying not to feel the shame and sadness that is building as we realize, they don’t fit. There are strong feelings in that box, next to our old jeans. We look in the mirror and we think of the box. We eat a cupcake, and we think of the box. We see a photo on Facebook of us during our thinner years, and we again, think of the box. The box might be stored in the basement, but we are tripping over it everywhere we go.
We’re reminded constantly, of our feelings of shame around pants that are too small.
How do we remedy this situation?
We learn to handle it.
History will continue to repeat itself if we keep tripping over our basement boxes.
How do we handle it?
By doing things differently.
Believe me when I tell you, it’s not actually about the jeans in the box… or going shopping for new clothes.
This is about handling the feeling of shame and sadness.
It’s time to turn inward, and ask what is the emotion here that is attached to this box, and how can I let it go?
By feeling it.
(I promise, this is all relevant to dark days!!)
Our shame is dark. Our anger is dark. Our resentment, our broken heart, those are in dark boxes in the basement. We don’t want to feel shame when we look at the smaller jeans. We don’t want to feel anger when we think of the boss that laid us off. We don’t want to feel broken hearted when we argue with our partner.
But we do.
We tend to project our emotions (shame, anger, broken hearted-ness) on to the person or situation that is triggering it. EVEN IF that person or situation is not actually a threat to us.
And the only way to let that go, is to feel it, and then, let the feeling go.
I know, it’s scary — and dark.
Keep reading.
Several days ago, I was meditating, and the theme of the meditation was about releasing fear. Sitting on the couch, after about 4 minutes, I was having a full panic attack, gripped by fear, shaking in my legs, tears streaming down my cheeks. I don’t know if I was prompted by the meditation, or my own inner voice, but something said:
‘pat the couch, let fear sit next to you…’
So I did.
And my fear sat next to me, and had her few moments to tell me everything that I was absolutely terrified of. And then — it passed, and slowly dissolved.
I breathed, I dried my eyes, I relaxed my shoulders, and warmth grew in my legs and feet again.
I made it through the fear ALIVE.
And I realized, I wasn’t the fear.
I was the one feeling it.
Two days later I was in the middle of a hard conversation. I could feel strong emotions bubbling up; fear, resentment, defensiveness, anger – and something in me said:
‘close your eyes.’
I did, and the conversation continued. My defensiveness sat next to me. I heard what was being said. I heard what I had blocked for years, and I felt… humbled.
‘Wow… I have not been listening, I have not wanted to hear these words, because I did not want to FEEL what those words would make me feel (fear, resentment, defensiveness, anger).‘
A feeling of peace began to grow in me as I absorbed everything.
Something in me now said ‘open your eyes’.
I did, and I could see the bright blue sky above me, clouds dotting the horizon. And this understanding came… just because there are clouds in the sky, does not mean that the sun is not there shining on you. The clouds are those difficult feelings and thoughts.
Can the sun still shine through?
Of course.
Does it ever STOP shining through?
No, never.
The sun is present during a massive hurricane.
The sun shines through the dark night.
The sun, is the light.
And even though we are in the darkest days of the year, the sun never stops shining. The sun shines through when we are able to stop, and sit, in the hurricane of emotions and thoughts, in the dark night, and feel them, and let them pass and dissolve away.
Invite fear to sit with you on the couch and voice her opinion.
She does not control you though… she just wants you to know she’s in there.
She’s saying, ‘please don’t box me up with the old jeans and put me in the basement.’
She’ll stop talking after you’ve heard her.
She’s naturally a dark character.
Maybe light a candle when she comes up.
What happens next will seem like magic. Your life begins to unfold naturally.
Life will bring you experiences, often comically so, that are asking you to ‘re-do’ them. History repeats until we get the lesson.
Hint: the lesson is to listen to that gentle inner voice, to bring in light, to give love.
You will encounter situations that will prompt strong emotions… even GOOD emotions, and your job, is to fully feel them.
At the same time, feeling dark fear can be absolutely terrifying.
BUT that emotion is coming up to be FELT, acknowledged, and then released as you turn inward toward gentle love.
The dark feelings want to come out, to be felt and dissolved.
A teacher of mine says (something along the lines of) it is better to handle the scary things outside of you than to store them inside… in a box, in the basement.
Because, just like the Sun in a hurricane, we are ALL always filled with warmth and light. Clouds, darkness, anger, shame, and fear will come and go.
We are learning, gently, to remember the light, the love, the happiest memories and times to come. Learn from the naked trees, it’s liberating to be vulnerable. To be vulnerable means to have the courage to sit with fear on the couch, and listen, and release. There will be dark days, but they come and go, they turn us inward, to reflect gently in the light.
As they say, it’s always darkest, before the dawn.
Now — I’m off to string some pretty white lights outside, to remind me of what I’m remembering during these dark mornings.
Natural Peace Living 