The Dark Truth...

This weeks blog is not one that has fallen from the thought lines of my mind. And at the same time it is the greatest lesson I have ever tried to live, And I have been working at it for years. Though, some days it is as if I have integrated this lesson to the plank scale of my Soul. Other days I am on the opposite end of the spectrum. The balance of shadow and light becomes a dark truth when we realize the shadow is not outside of us, but within us. Hence, learning the balance of our hearts Shadow and Light, is the most important dance we can live... Read on, if you are ready. Because as the opening of the newsletter states: "with no way to turn back the page, no second chances to reread what we rushed through because we thought we already understood it." Once you read this; I mean really let it speak to your Soul, you will never forget the challenge of living Love from your highest essence...

The Dark Truth... What kind of God would create such a cruel world? I cannot imagine. How many times have you heard human beings utter that question. Lord, I hear it quite often myself when I'm teaching.

For years, I've told people this place isn't God's mess, it's ours.

But I have to say that was not the most enlightening response I've ever come up with. I did not want to tell them that I'm still incubating my answer, that I was in the midst of that deep long trek of unwinding my own dark passages so I could understand you.

Why is it we make choices that perpetuate suffering and pain when we have so many choices that could create the opposite outcome. Could it be that we are just more familiar with suffering, or is the truth more brutal, Lord. Are we terrified to make loving and generous choices because those are the ones that liberate and free others.

Is the deeper truth that we are genuinely terrified of empowering others with love and support. Are we so scared of loving more that we would rather suffer the result of selfish choices. Do we love as little as we can, just enough to survive?

Love should be so easy, so free, but it's not, is it. Not really.

Why is loving such a struggle when it is the one thing we crave the most. The truth is that love is also empowering. It is the substance that channels light and hope and wonder back into a human being the same way oxygen revives a drowning victim.

It is because it is so powerful that people guard love so judiciously. To love is one thing, but loving enough to empower another person, that is truly unconditional love. That is when cologne becomes pure perfume, the valuable fragrance that lasts.

Love with conditions creates suffering. That is the dark truth. Love can disempower someone as much as empower them. Lord, love can destroy a person as well as revive the will to live.

We do not have to suffer at all, do we, not when it is up to us to decide how deeply we will love others. But each person must confront whether he or she is able to love deeply enough to empower others, to liberate them, to become whole beings.

Or do we love in order to quiet our fears and insecurities?

There are no secrets in this universe, Lord. Guidance and power are fundamental ingredients of the human experience. Everything we do, say, think, wear, buy, everything in our lives is a power calculation. Love is no exception. Love is perhaps the greatest power, more enduring than anger or rage or envy, because the power of pure love does not break you down. Love sustains you through the most difficult times.

Dark powers like anger or rage will indeed keep you going and motivate you to all forms of actions, but those actions will take their toll on your life in one way or another. We hold on to anger because we believe someone has disempowered us. We tell ourselves we have a right to retrieve our power. That is how vengeance sounds in our head. Turning the other cheek is advice we rarely follow. It seems so otherworldly. There is no immediate prideful satisfaction. When we turn the other cheek, we risk looking humiliated, as if we have lost the game, or worse, as if we have lost our courage.

But the truth is that turning the other cheek is exactly what shatters the darkness and heals the deep bleeding wounds of your heart.

Choosing to see through the pain that drives the other person or people rather than hating them back opens your heart. It liberates you from the grip of your own rage. When you do not return anger and rage to someone, you release yourself from the endless cycle of hatred and vengeance. You also free the other to move on, release their pain, forgive, and get on with the business of living and loving in the here and now.

Holding on to wounds and hurt feelings is a choice you are making, a personal choice to dwell in the state of suffering. No matter how deep our wounds are in life, and some wounds are very deep and very brutal, in the end we have but one choice.

We either stay bitter or we get better.

Healing takes the grace of courage because it often requires us to excavate the depths of our own dark thoughts, fantasies, and desires. Wounds fester within us, and because they are poison, they fill us with poisonous thoughts. We often embrace these thoughts because the idea of telling someone off, humiliating them, or punishing them for hurting us makes us feel empowered. But such actions never work, never.

If we bring it up, those people will respond to us by saying, What are you talking about, I never did that to you. Your pain is your pain, not anybody else's, and it is certainly not real to those who hurt you any more than you can feel the pain you yourself have inflicted on others.

No doubt you would deny how deeply you have hurt others if they confronted you. Think about that. Everyone's healing is a personal journey, and that is all there is to it. It takes the grace of courage to finally face that truth.

And now your pocket sized prayer.

Lord, grant me the courage to confront my own darkness, my own inner shadow, my own blockages to love. I may think of myself as loving, but the truth is that I love conveniently. I am afraid of the power of love.

It takes courage to be unconditionally loving. Help me open my heart beyond the boundaries of my own safety net. I have no idea what strangers or even foes might find their way into my heart, but unconditional love is exactly that, love without condition. Caroline Myss PhD - Intimate Conversations with the Divine Blessings, Love & Light...