Recovering Your Light:
Embracing the Darkness to Accelerate Growth
May 2004



Suffering
Suffering is part of life. There is no living without difficulty, pain, suffering, confusion. Like the ebb and flow of the tide, our lives move with natural rhythms from one emotion to another, in and out of challenge, dissipating upon the sand, regrouping and crashing upon the beach again.

Do you allow this process or do you fight it? Do you resist the suffering and pain, an active avoidance of what is true, your rhythm of life?

What to Do in the Dark
There are many choices of how to handle the darkness. Resist it, deny its very existence, pretend you don’t feel, are stronger than it. Curse it and hate it, angrily asking, “Why me!?” However, just like you cannot control the setting of the sun, you cannot control a period of darkness; it is merely part of growth. What good does it do to fight it or hate it, feeling betrayed?

Your best way to experience the dark is to embrace it, accept it, seek the lesson hidden beneath the surface, allow. Allowing does not mean sitting back watching life pass you by. Allowing is merely moving with the current, rather than trying to push back the tide from where it came.

You cannot fix or control everything.

Sometimes it is merely about waiting for the answer to come. As surely as the sun will rise again, the resolution will come. Be with your darkness, feel it, accept it with compassion, take pause, allow. Observe. Learn.

There is no “right” amount of time or believing “I should have resolved this by now” or “I should be done mourning this, what is wrong with me?”

The Glimmer of Light
Darkness is a time for reflection, slowing, quieting. Capture the essence of grace in your mind and consider moving through your darkness with it. Know that all the light you need is within you, and trust that you will be guided to recover your light at the perfect time.

In my experience, when I finally “give in” and allow rather than trying to handle everything myself, that is when a shift occurs.

I begin to feel lighter, quieter, more still. The anxiety, anger or sadness sifts away like sand through sieve. It is a place in-between — it is neither dark nor light, it just is. I am no longer judging it, myself or my expectations, but merely observing and noticing my learning.

Break of a New Day
Ahh the sunrise couldn’t be timelier. When you have finally moved through the dark, sat in it, breathed through it, observed and learned, then it is time to step forth into a new light. Bear in mind, that although you leave the darkness behind, it has given birth to renewed strength and wisdom that you carry forward. Remember it is always with you.

Choose to see the learning that came through suffering. Choose to see the benefit in the dark, the quiet. After all, weren’t you in darkness, in an accelerated growth cycle for 9 months?!

And then, when you feel the cloud is lifted, take notice and follow suit. Not too long ago experienced great challenge, personally and professionally with overwhelm and a sense of immobility. I allowed myself to feel the darkness and not try to fix it immediately. Eventually it passed and one morning I awoke, did my meditation, and felt different somehow, lighter. I had an amazing sense of peace, like the quiet after a thunderstorm when all is still and fertile with possibility.

Within 2 hours I received a call from a previous client wanting to set up appointments for the next month, another call from a prospective client apologizing for the delay in contacting me but excited to set a time to meet, and an email from a 3rd person who was considering working together. And later that day a colleague called to set up an appointment for me to meet and perhaps start working with her stepdaughter.

Coincidence?

Not so much.

Trust that the darkness brings openness and light accompanied by great learning.

Allow.

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