Light in the dark : today’s reflections

Well after the week of disappointments with family and feeling suicidal I seem to be gaining some perspective on the reality of things and seeing more deeply how I turn everything around to make myself wrong or the bad one. I think people don’t care for me and are rejecting me which is just being self centred really, they are probably far too busy living their lives to give me a thought and there may be other reasons my sister never contacts me. She always talks about having no ‘news’ when the types of talks I favour are on the inner life and we don’t relate at that level, so how much is there to say as I live a more introverted interior life really and I am sick to death of judging myself for that.

One of my favourite quotes in recovery was from John Bradshaw he said once “we are human beings not human doings” but so often in this life the talk is all about what you are ‘doing’. I just read post on how someone was spun out by all the doings of her life and just longing to spend one on one time with her cat. I could not help but think of the Marion Woodman interview I posted last week on how human beings have fallen out of touch with their bodies and the slow natural rhythm of life. Animals never move too far away from their natural cycles. They never argue with you when you are sad telling you to ‘get over it’ they just sit there and look deeply into your eyes saying wordlessly “I see and I know”.

I listened to talk by a Canadian Native American woman yesterday (I am sorry I don’t remember her name but later I will update this post with a link to the talk) where she spoke of the decimation of her culture by white settlement. At the moment in Australia two days away from our national day there is a big debate ongoing as some sectors of the aboriginal and white population would like the day moved as they say that for aboriginal and indigenous people it represents a day of trauma, infiltration, overtaking then genocide and the attempt (as was done to the Native Canadian and American populations) to re-educate the population. Here in Australia aboriginal babies were forceably removed from parents ‘for their own good’. We are still dealing with the fall out and impact of this wounding.

Speaking of wounds today I was thinking about my own struggle with intimacy and being and expressing my true self as I grew up in my family. I have to make a decision whether to actively support someone with something that I am not one hundred percent committed too and the entire thing is making me conflicted because I see as much as I love people I often don’t like the trauma they end up bringing to my life wanting me to move at different rhythms to my own natural one. God knows its taken me some time to find out who I really am. As person who unconsciously chose addiction I was always seeking to escape myself and as a conditioned co dependent people pleaser to do or be what they needed me to be. Now when I relate I want it to be from an authentic place but I am still wary and uncertain in relationships and it is something I struggle with until I find those who show empathy and understanding and I now know there are a lot of people like me out there. It does not mean I don’t want to relate to people who are not like me as everyone has a right to be themselves I just would rather be around those who extend me the same acceptance.

Its very quiet and lonely here today. We have an overcast day which is providing a reprieve as lately temperatures have been soaring and we are having 38 and 39 degrees over the weekend. Worries about global warming loom larger in summer here. We are having massive electrical storms too which send down a deluge of rain. Nature is really speaking very loudly to us. And I personally love being attuned to nature. Living in harmony with the seasons and the weather can be an inner thing too. We all have our own emotional weathers which circulate and there is much we can do to alter our lives for good or ill with the choices we make. Do we move our bodies, take care of then with good food, sunshine, fresh air, water and rest? Do we listen to our emotions? Are we aware of what feeds and does damage to our soul? Are we choosing to wake up and participate in a positive way or stay numb and mired in hopelessness?

Most certainly there are those deep dark days when we are going to feel like not going on, like the burden of past pain and trauma and current disconnections are almost too hard to bear, but what I am finding is that often on those days I am being shown something. I agree with Marianne Williamson and Carl Jung, that when we flee our own darkness we also flee our light. And for many of us our gold is actually hidden in our shadow. We are not as bad or sick or maladapted and as the mechanical soulless world driven on certain ideals would have us believe. And if we are empaths we may actually need a lot of quiet alone time and our connection with both inner and outer nature is so essential for us. It absolutely must be seen, known and nourished.