If you are like me, you probably have some parts of your soul that you tend to shy away from.
Maybe it’s because it’s a dark area of your past that contains a pain that you’d like to forget, or maybe it’s a component of your character that you wish was somehow different. Maybe it’s something that you did a long time ago that you would give everything you have now to go back and change.
Please hear this: darkness doesn’t make you horrible, it just makes you human.
It takes an incredible amount of courage to go deep and see inside of that which you’d rather avoid, especially if your past contains the kind of demons and nightmares that can inhibit our days and inhabit our nights.
I don’t think I’ll ever stop being amazed at the bravery and tenacity of some of the people who I've been privileged to help along the way through this work.
The courage of people in the face of the difficulties of life just leaves me speechless.
I wish you and I could sit down and talk for a day. Maybe on a quiet beach, feeling the warmth from a campfire, watching as the flames light the coming evening, or maybe sitting by a stream in the mountains, listening to the water as it flows down towards the distant but inevitable sea. Wherever we sat together, I would love to listen to you as you speak the truths of your soul.
To sit in your presence, and learn from your wisdom.
Which may sound funny, but I honestly believe that everybody has wisdom to share. Sometimes our situations may be different, but in the end most of the problems we face are relatively the same.
Relationships that aren’t the way we expected them to be; circumstances that didn’t quite turn out the way that we thought they should.
While the details may differ, in the end we all want the same things.
Yet sometimes finding someone with whom you can explore your soul is difficult. I had an experience recently where a woman I was talking to felt safe enough to unburden herself some of the deepest and darkest aspects of what she thought were flaws in her character.
I could tell the struggle she was going through to express in words what she felt was some of her deepest shame.
Yet when she explained it to me, I saw nothing other than a normal human emotion.
And a lot of the time that’s what we really need. We just need to talk to somebody who feels safe, about the things that we really feel. I’ve said time and again that feelings are not good or bad, they merely are.
Once we remove judgment, we can go about the work of taking them apart, finding what went wrong and seeing if we can put it right.
Sometimes, life is about being with someone you trust as you look into the darkness.
Which is where courage comes in. Because sometimes the things we feel are so painful and so difficult that merely talking about them breaks our hearts and brings us to tears.
Sometimes we need someone who can reflect back are words with a slight change in emphasis to help us see where we thought our darkness was horrible, and it turns out to be human.
One soft light in the darkness changes it from absolute into something that we can work with.
And the funny thing is, as I learned recently, most of the time our darkness really isn’t something to be afraid of. Sure it might hurt coming out, and it might require good friends and talented guides to help us navigate, but in the end on the other side of darkness is peace and understanding. We just have to find our way there.
And I hope in some small way, this work is a light to you, helping you forwards towards your own piece.
May you find wisdom and peace today.
And always.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings