“How dare you leave me!”
The words echoed through my mind as I looked at the boy, wide-eyed, in shock. Why would he say that to me? He didn’t even know me!
As I walked back home from the park where I had run into the teenage boy and talked with him a bit, I searched through my own life to examine what the boy’s statement was a reflection of in my own life.
I had recently lost my cat, Perrin. Earlier that year, on May 25th, he made his transition in my arms. I thought that I had processed the grief and was moving on. But that was not so. There was still something that I had not confronted. The teenage boy’s statement to me was actually the answer to what I was still holding onto – what I had been refusing to see – what was still remaining in my own mind, begging me to let go.
I was angry at Perrin for leaving me.
When I realized that I was actually feeling angry at my innocent cat for leaving me, I felt shocked. I couldn’t believe it. It was insane to feel angry at him, after all. Wasn’t it? After all, Perrin had fought to his final breath, his last heartbeat, to stay with me. He refused to die even until he was in my arms, looking up into my eyes. He loved me more than any soul ever had. Why would I be angry with him for anything? What would it mean if I admitted that I felt angry with him?
That was so difficult for me to face. I was actually running away from it so that I wouldn’t have to confront something that I believed to be so ugly. If I was angry with Perrin, that would mean that I was a terrible person. Guilty. Ugly. I would have to face my belief in my own shame: the belief that there was something wrong with me. It would also mean that I would have to go back through my life and confront the same anger with everyone else who ever left me. And that was something that I absolutely did not want to do. But sometimes, we simply can’t let our anger go until we confront it. Until we confront it, we run away from it, and the more we run away from it, it chases us, gets in our faces, and keeps repeating over and over again – each time even more intensely than the last – until it finally surrounds us and gives us nowhere to run to. We cannot escape from our own beliefs until we face them so that we may consciously choose Truth instead.
During the time in which I was grieving, I felt completely blocked. Unable to function. I could barely write. I could not get any significant work done. I was busy running away from life. Suddenly I wanted to connect with life – but only life that did not involve a whole lot of thought or work. I found myself just wanting to connect with other people, to go out and have a good time, to play. And only to play. I thought I was consciously choosing joy. But that wasn’t what I was actually doing. I was running away and suppressing the deep pain I felt, distracting myself, telling myself that playing and having fun was what was letting the joy in. That was only true to a certain extent. Eventually, I had to stop running away and playing, and make the effort confront the darkness.
Why? Why stop and confront the darkness rather than just to play and have fun? Why isn’t playing and having fun actually the full scope of letting the joy in? Isn’t playing the way to choose the light over the darkness?
Nope. Not when you’re suppressing and resisting the darkness, it isn’t. But isn’t facing the darkness a form of being negative? Nope. To be negative is to judge the negative as something bad, something to resist and avoid at all costs – which means you actually put more power into what you’ve judged as negative, and you end up suppressing it. When you suppress the darkness, you drive it further down into the subconscious mind, where it crowds your Heart, blocks your Light, and becomes even more powerful.
“This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor… Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
~Rumi~
What we hold onto, we reflect back to the outer world. And we hold onto it for more than just ourselves. When our Light and our Love are blocked by our own resistance and beliefs in “negativity,” we stop the flow of our Light and our Love to and from everyone and everything else. We hold a frequency that stagnates and resonates with more “negativity,” which blocks the Love and the Joy that we already Are from flowing and being shared. We are no longer able to give and receive fully. We begin to decay and rot. Illnesses, dis-ease, and injuries begin to manifest. Our suppression of the darkness affects so much more than just ourselves. It affects everyone and everything – the earth, humanity, all life – the entire universe. Ignoring the darkness is not the answer, because it festers, it grows, it magnetizes, just like a snowball rolling down a mountain, which turns into a devastating avalanche. The “negative” beliefs have got to be acknowledged and confronted because they are begging to be let go. Our negative beliefs are not there asking to be judged. After all, we made them up in the first place. They are our own “creations.” They simply want to be acknowledged, recognized – and then they are let go, set free, dissolved into Light. It’s not being negative to confront your own darkness, and if anybody ever tries to tell you that you’re being negative by examining your own beliefs, don’t believe a word of it, and do not judge yourself – just understand that people are fearful of what they’ve judged to be negative.
In a universe of duality, such as this one is, we have both Light and Darkness. Both are to be honored. When you take the time and make the effort to acknowledge the darkness, it’s happy. It got what it wanted. Your recognition. And off it goes, happy to die as the night and make way for the morning of Light. The Love and Joy and Peace that You Are shines ever more brightly, and when you play, you are Life. You are no longer playing for the sake of distraction; you are no longer running away from what you fear, from the trauma you want to avoid, but rather, you are running toward Love.
So go ahead and ask yourself: What is it that wants my recognition? What is it that I’m still holding onto? What is it that wants to be let go? And don’t be afraid of the answers. Some of them may feel insane. Some of them may have you feeling like the worst person in the world. But it’s not true. In Truth, there isn’t anything wrong with you – there is only the belief that there is. And that belief is begging you to let it go. Let it be a gift from your own Soul. Open it up and find the light buried in the darkness. You put it there yourself, to be found just when you need it most.
