A brighter day

Well one good thing about the dark painful days, especially when they are full of self realisation is that a brighter day eventually follows. This is how I believe it truly is when we have the courage to face ourselves and our fear and pain and darkness, the light then comes in and it is often so amazing to me how nature mirrors the inner psyche because as I started to type this paragraph the sun just appeared from behind clouds glowing in brightly through my living room window.

The longer we live the more painful experiences we often get to go through. The loneliness and struggle of my sister’s present life was strongly on my mind this morning as I did my morning stretches and yoga. I felt so much for her, I still haven’t visited though everything in my heart wants to be sitting right beside her holding her hand letting her know she is not alone. Yet I also know there come times when WE REALLY TRULY ARE ALONE (and yet for those of us who are graced enough to believe in force of God or love or higher power we also know we are not). The truth is that humans will desert us at times, they will abandon us in our darkest hour and betray our expectation or their own promises and yet despite all of this, there is a place we do have to go with this pain, at least that is what I truly believe. And as Marianne Williamson writes its what we do with our most painful experiences, the meaning we make of suffering, challenges or loss and the gifts we get to give from that place or wound that may show us best how our experience or struggle can help others, it is something that is said a lot in the rooms of AA we get to keep our recovery when we live it and pass it forward.

I watched the portion of This Is Us last night where the character Kevin goes into his addiction meltdown, the episode really cuts deep with me, he sustains an injury that makes it impossible for him to play football and though it was not as devastating as the car crash I went through on another level it meant the loss of a dream for him, his father’s death would follow a short time later (as did my own Dad’s death) so those scenes where he finally touches base finally with the pain and frustrations that have dogged him and with his other episodes of self sabotage really made me cry, then he loses his father’s good luck medal, the one his Dad gave to him when he is in the hospital on one night stand, he collapses to the ground and just prays to God, meeting his own personal rock bottom.

It strikes me that when we are at our lowest, weakest or most powerless, when all has been stripped away and we face our own darkness and demons that God or redemption or a higher power is most closely at hand but we have to reach out and ask and it is then that some force seems to step in to assist us, even though it is we who must do the work; grace attends this decision by making us willing to surrender and embrace and take action for change.

Marianne shares in her book From Tears To Triumph how during her own breakdown she felt a presence around her sitting on the bed in her darkest moments. Later this presence turned up at a cocktail party she called the presence Jesus and told him she was fine now and could manage alone. I guess what she faced was the realisation she had to go and teach and become a healer who helped others to realise there is a new life on the other side of breakdown. This is mostly what I am praying for for my sister. None of us know when that unique personal breakthrough will come for us, no on knows the month or week or day things will turn around inside of us and we will make the decision to go on living life carrying all the knowledge of the pain of things we endured with us, using it as a reminder of how precious life really is and using the power or grace we gained to live for light while carrying a deeper recognition of the healing power of the dark.

For some of us it doesn’t come, for some of us the lure of death with the promise of extinction of our suffering seems better and we make that choice and no one gets to say who will make it. Really in the end it is up to us, but many of us may have luckier breaks, we may meet just the right person or helper or even an enemy who teaches us about a critical lesson or awakens our darker side so that in seeing it we get a chance to grow towards and choose for the light.

For me the recognition of the perfection in life’s trials, pain and disappointments is so important. Can I learn to love the life I have been given fully? Do I have the courage to take the steps to make it better? To choose for love not fear? To reach for connection, expose vulnerability, be real? To find the lesson in the pain? Or just trust the process of leaning into pain or experiences in order that I can incorporate them with as least resistance as possible? To be reshaped by active surrender to life’s troughs and surges?

I have come to believe more in the power of time and prayer and that sometimes we need to ask for help and allow ourselves enough receptivity and patience to wait for it. In time then the sun does break through the clouds, a bright clean clear sunshiny day follows days and days and days of rainy deluge. And then I realise something that my Dad said to us just before he died. “Just remember, life is for the living and life goes on.” For some of us it takes a long time to move through loss, failures, disappointments but the victory comes on the day we finally wake and remember what a gift this day and life is and realise its all up to us to decide how we are going to use it and what meaning we will extract from our life challenges.