Navigating the Darkness

So we think we've been mostly aligned and living our best life, and then some big, unwanted experience shows up right smack in the middle of our path.

First, we'll go through the stages of grief, because whatever our life was before, it's not now, and it probably won't be again. We don't go backward. But we can be sure that what lies ahead of the dark patch has the potential to be even better than what came before it. It can be a new and improved version of what we had before.

So there will be periods of sadness and grieving for what's gone by, followed by raging and anger at the big bad thing that has come, and maybe some denial in the form of thinking we can avoid this part of the path. But eventually we'll come to acceptance, and that's when we can begin to move through.

But first, we probably want to know WTF happened.

There's no doubt something did...

There has to have been some part of our life that needed to change in order to get to where our heart wanted to go next.

Stagnation

Sometimes, when we think we're perfectly content with our lives just the way they are, we tend to stop growing. We can even begin to stagnate.

Energy cannot sit still, it's in constant motion. And so are we, really. Even when we think we're still, we are launching desires. A little warmer, a little cooler, a little breeze, more sunshine, more sugar, more time, etc. We cannot be alive without launching desires, big and small. More money, fewer bills, more fun, more energy. Our Higher Self is shooting beams forward in what we perceive as time, to become every one of those desires, but we can't move into them if we're sitting still.

Misreading of Alignment

Sometimes, we think we're aligned when we aren't. Sometimes we think we're following our bliss while we might be harboring a deep fear that doing so will leave us impoverished. And that's never going to go well. Sometimes we give lip service to following our bliss while still forcing ourselves to do the work we're sure, deep down, will earn more. That's split energ. Sometimes we think we're aligned, while having launched thousands of desires, and maybe one we think of as a really big one, that we haven't yet manifested. The rubber band between our Higher Self, already living that dream, and our here and now self, stretches tighter until something has to give. None of these states is sustainable.

The Human Condition

We have to accept that we are never fully aligned with Source until we pass through the Veil of Illusion back into our formless state. We can't achieve that kind of broadness, vastness, lightness, in human form. We're just denser, we're heavier, we're living in the belief that we are individual beings sharing the planet with countless other individual beings. We can intellectually believe in the oneness of the Whole, but we're not living in that experience. We're living lives as separate beings, because it's the best way for Source to gather the widest range of experiences, all of which feed expansion, which is the entire point of all existence.

As humans, we're never going to be 100% aligned, and that's okay. We're designed not to be. This way we can experience everything, and decide which things we like, and expand into more of those.

Experiencing something we dislike is really just our own, self-created tool to force us into growth.The growth, we ourselves desire.When we stop growing, things start to get unpleasant.

We've covered all this before. But what about when we're in the middle of one of those "bad" experiences that's forcing us to grow? How do we get through it as quickly and painlessly as possible?

Getting Through as Quickly and Painlessly as Possible

First, it's okay to take some time weeping and raging first. Just try not to stay there too long. Once we get to acceptance, which is basically, this is what it is right now and we'll just have to deal with it, we're ready to begin moving through..

Trying to change what is only keeps it going.

Life is what it is because it can't be anything else at this moment, given our current vibration. The wavelength of our output signal, tunes our input signal. (What we think about, focus on, believe in, and expect go into creating our signal)

So first, we need to change the wavelength of our output. And we have to do it before change can occur in the experience we call reality. As I often say, we can't watch Buffy the Vampier Slayer re-runs on CNN. We have to turn the channel.

And that means that right where we are, in the thick of our own personal shit storm, whatever it might be, we have find our way back to feeling good.

The Heart, our GPS

We should look for things in our lives right now that are still good. We could take walks outside, even in the cold. I find beauty even in the frost on the grass and bare-boned trees.

Love our pets and bask in them many times a day. Notice the pretty things about our homes, the parts we would love most if we were seeing it for the first time. Eat foods we love. Be good to ourselves even if the current shit storm requires hours of hard work. Make it as easy as it can on be. Wear the most comfortable clothes, and shoes. Take every available break.

If we listen to Listen our hearts by leaning into what feels good, we automatically lean away from what feels bad. Dark times are powerful periods for tuning in our own emotions, really hearing and feeling them, and learning to trust them to guide us. That's what they are for.

We can even attempt to find things about the storm that are good. Try to start seeing it more as a challenge than a storm, more as a period of transition than a problem. Think about every major change in our life. Didn't all of them seem pretty awful during the transition? And wasn't our life better in many ways, after the change?

Birth and death are transitions. too. Both are frequently painful and always scary. But after, there is life filled with wonder and joy, experience and expansion, on both sides of the Veil.

We should remind ourselves that this experience we are living has come to us for a reason. It has come in response to our asking.Not asking for the "bad" experience itself, but asking for what lies beyond it. Asking for what we've been wanting and wanting and not moving toward.

Give that some thought, too. What have we been wanting and wanting for a long time but not moving toward? But don't get stuck there. The goal is to move forward, through the current experience to what awaits on the other side.

Embrace the challenge of the current moment. Look for where it must be leading, and appreciate in advance the jump-start it has provided. If we can find good in it, we will tune out the bad in it, and our experience will begin to shift for the better.

Embracing the Darkness

It's the week of Samhain. The timing is perfect for this exercise of searching whatever darkness we might be living for its messages. It is always pushing us toward its own opposite, its own answer, or solution. When we say to embrace the darkness, we do not mean to pretend we are enjoying it or that we should force a smile through the pain, or fake it til we make it. We mean, find the reason. Find where it's leading. Find the power of it. It has forced us to move, to change, to grow. It has launched us from complacency, perhaps. It has lit a fire under us, maybe.

When we can be aligned enough to realize that this "problem" not only a good thing, but a part of the cycle of life as a human, then we've found the pathway through.

When we understand the dark times for what they are, as both inevitable and necessary to our evolution, then it's hard to be angry.

Accept, Explore, Embrace, Evolve

Those are the steps on the path through our current darkness..

First, accept that it is what it is, and is in fact, the only way it can be right now.

Second, explore what's happening, and think about what it's pushing us toward. What would be the solution? And is the answer to that question something we've been wanting for a while, but not moving toward? This is what awaits us on the other side of this "problem."

Third, embrace the good things in our lives and even the good parts of this challenging part of our paths. By searching for the good, we keep moving forward. When we focus on the bad, even by pushing against it, we are standing still on the dark section of the trail.

Fourth, emerge into the light again, having followed our hearts to get there. Good feelings are bread crumbs on the path, guiding our way.

On the other side of this dark time, we will have manifested something we have long wanted but have not at this moment moved toward. And that was the reason for all of this.