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Owning Darkness: Accepting The Shadow
Hiya, Pinkies. Lissa here. It's been a while since I've written a post. (How lovely to realize I don't HAVE to write for Owning Pink- because YOU will. Thank you all for helping me make Owning Pink OUR website and not just mine.) I guess I just haven't felt much like writing because I've been in kind of a weird space. But why should that keep me from writing about where I am? Well, I tell myself the story that people come to Owning Pink to get inspired, to feel good, to experience joy. But on thinking about it further, I realize that's only part of it. I think we come to Owning Pink to tell the truth- and to gather in community around what is true for us at any given moment. So right now, in this minute, this is what's true for me. Thank you for holding the space for me to process these feelings. You Pinkies rock!
In this wintertime of late sunrises and early sunsets, I find myself exploring darkness, not just the extended nighttimes but the darkness within me. Since coming back home after our holiday break, I find myself experiencing frequent dark nights of the soul. You know the scenario. You wake from a nightmare to see the digital clock blinking 3:12 in bright red. The room is dark, void of moonlight, and you’re alone- or your partner snores quietly, blissfully unconscious. The broken record starts spinning in your head. “What the hell am I doing? Who do I think I am to think I can take this kind of risk? I’m not smart enough/ loving enough/ healthy enough/ talented enough/ devoted enough/ pious enough/ good enough…Head spinning, you find yourself doubting the very fiber of your being, as the ticker tape of negative self talk repeats itself endlessly.
Where for art though, God?
If you’re like me, you turn to God, and you start to pray. You pray for guidance, for peace, for signs, for faith, but you feel alone. The signs seem to have left you. The angels are silenced. Why has God forsaken you? And you start to cry, with the ticker tape spinning ever faster.
You try meditating. You try praying harder. You count sheep, anything to pass the time until the sun rises and the night ends. But hours later, you look at the clock, and it’s 3:15. Time marches.
By 4:21, you’re crazy with exhaustion but you lie, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Your to-do list piles up mentally and your heart starts pounding under the pressure of it all. You add to the list the dreams lost, the failures, the mistakes you’ve made, the regrets you try to dismiss as part of your life experience, part of what makes you who you are.
It’s 4:37, and you’re about to give up hope and turn on the light, just to end the dark night of the soul, but you convince yourself you deserve it. All those nights of peaceful sleep were merely band-aids, whereas, this exploration of the dark might heal you. If you can only go there, can venture into the darkness unafraid- maybe you will embrace the darkness, befriend the shadow, sit silently with the demons.
Enter the Demons
But just when you get comfortable with it, a gremlin jumps out and catches you unaware. You jump from your near-sleep with a start- and the whole thing starts over again. Until finally, at dawn, you fall asleep- and your 4 year old wakes you up. You think, “Thank God (you’ve forgiven the divine for forsaking you, now that the sun is turning the dawn sky pink.).” You open your eyes, relieved but haunted by the night before, dreading the night ahead, knowing you may once more be forced to look where no one dare tread.
Have you felt that way? Okay, so maybe it’s just me. It doesn’t happen often for me- and the dark nights tend to come in spurts, like waves crashing on the shore, with periods of stillness and then four or five in a row. The last series of waves crashed around last Christmas, so maybe it’s a pattern for me. I will not judge it. Just as Pink Editor-In-Chief Joy owns stillness, I will OWN darkness. I will be with what is, and let it be.
Nobody Is Always Cheerful
I know this post is a departure from my usual ones. You may think I am unnaturally cheerful, and honestly- that’s just how I am most of the time. I'm usually excessively hopeful, genuinely optimistic, even childishly Pollyanna about life. I've always been that way. I don’t put on some silly performance for you. Why would I? Owning Pink is all about being authentic, about telling what’s true, about being present for each other with what is. So yes, normally, I’m ridiculously positive. I see the light in most dark tunnels. I walk through life filled with gratitude. I feel blessed almost every moment of my life. There are moments when I feel so filled with joy that I am rendered speechless.
But there are also dark nights of the soul. There is darkness. I have shadows. And I’m okay with that.
Yes, I will be happy when the dark nights stop. It’s hard to be with what isn’t pretty. But how would we appreciate the light if we weren’t intimately aware of the darkness?
And so I own it- and I invite you to do the same.
Be With Darkness
Be with what is. Feel your feelings. Acknowledge your doubts, your insecurities, your crises of faith. Release judgments around it. Sink into the darkness. Release the anxiety that accompanies it. Just be with it. And remember that nothing is permanent- not the light, and just as certainly, not the darkness.
When the sun rises again, the darkness will dissipate. The pink sky will bring you new hope. But unless you stop resisting the darkness, it will only come again, like clockwork. If you’re willing to stop fighting it and embrace the shadow, it will grow tired and go away.
Have you had dark nights of the soul, Pinkies? How do you handle them? What helps? Have you tried our Mojo Monday Shadow Exercise? Can you be with the darkness? Can you move beyond it when it’s time? Please share your experience.
Remember, it is only in darkness that you can see the stars.
Seeing the star in all of you,
Lissa
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I can most certainly resonate
By Megan Monique Harner on Sunday, 01/17/2010 at 8:58 PMI can most certainly resonate with the darkness in this moment. I am taking your advice and just being with it. I know this too shall pass and I am merely in the transition stage.
Thank you, dear sister. I
By Lissa Rankin on Sunday, 01/17/2010 at 8:43 AMThank you, dear sister. I love the Jung quote- "Only things with substance can have a shadow." Beautiful- and comforting. big love Lissa
oh crikey... that middle of
By faerian (not verified) on Saturday, 01/16/2010 at 11:17 AMoh crikey...
that middle of the night wake up when the gremlins rub their scratchy hands with glee and dive into your grey matter and scramble it up, transplanting their gunk of negativity and self doubt where the sense of self worth usually sits....
i have been there too many times to think about
but my take on negativity is that it is part of being human - Jung talks about how only things with substance can have a shadow...
nothing is always shiny and nor should it be - darkness is part of the balance - i love to hold a vision of the moon in my head - sometimes full and glowing, other times invisible, but still there...
darkness is part of being human and the more inauthentic we are about it's presence the longer it hangs around until we acknowledge it fully and let it go...
and then the light comes in because it is all about balance....
next time you wake up in htat ugly place, know that on the other side of the world there is someone awake who cares about you and who sends you peace...
Elaine- WELCOME! And thank
By Lissa Rankin on Saturday, 01/16/2010 at 11:05 AMElaine- WELCOME! And thank you, dear sister. Knowing you are all holding me- lifting me and each other- brings me great comfort at this time in my life. Blessings to you all, Lissa
I have just discoved this via
By Elaine van Zon (not verified) on Saturday, 01/16/2010 at 8:29 AMI have just discoved this via Twitter I'm so glad I did . Bless you . I believe some are called to the dark night of the soul just as some are called to ministry or evangelism . we are all told to take up our cross and on the cross Christ said " why have you forsaken me?" To share in the why? of the cross is to share in Christs sufferings and so we may share in his resurrection and somehow attain to fullness of life. Lately I have lived with the dark night of the soul constantly and now as I lift myself in the silence and pain to God , I will lift all the people here too . I'm going to bookmark this page and look forward to more of your loving ministry . God blessx Elaine
Lissa I'm late catching up.
By Dana Theus on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 5:07 PMLissa I'm late catching up. You know I can relate to this because we all can. Over the years, my dark nights have morphed and change as I have matured out of some fears and into others (including stupid hormones). Like all things, our dark side grows and changes as we do. We are so lucky to have each other, and our quietly snoozing bedmates, and our wee ones, and our pink loving friends and all the things we're thankful for when the the sun comes up. Next time the goblins jump in your bed, call us all to you and ask us to snuggle with you and crowd them out. (Srsly... see what happens).
(((((((((((((Lissa))))))))))))))
xoxox Love, Candelight and Soul Sisters ~Dana
Oh, Pinkies....deep dark bows
By Lissa Rankin on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 11:43 AMOh, Pinkies....deep dark bows to you. Namaste, dear ones.
Lissa- Thank you for sharing
By Danielle (not verified) on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 11:17 AMLissa-
Thank you for sharing your truth. So beautiful, authentic and transparent. I so know the feeling of relief when the sun comes up again, the light returns and I breathe a sigh of relief that I survived the darkest of the dark.
As you know, everything is temporary. You posess more light than anyone I know and the vast contrast of the darkness only makes the light that much brighter. Thank you for sharing the darkness with us, brave goddess of truth!
With love and light,
Danielle
Lissa, thank you for this
By Diana (not verified) on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 10:22 AMLissa, thank you for this post. I have felt the same way about blogging. I've read a lot of advice about positive thinking and so I would feel guilty when I wasn't feeling positive. Maybe now I can stop doing that. I'll think of this post. Those dark times seem to last forever for me when I'm right in the middle feeling the gremlins present. All I want them to do is to go away and they just seem to want to hold on as tight as possible and even when they loosen their grip I can still feel them lingering. I don't drive and I live in Illinois so I don't go out much in the winter. Sometimes I'll go outside when the sun is shining, although it's freezing, just to absorb some energy. Sometimes I have to make mself do it because I know it has helped me in the past. Bless you.
I love this. I do this. Of
By Joy Mazzola on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 10:15 AMI love this. I do this. Of course I do. We all do. My dark nights consist not only of to-do-list making (only feeling too tired and groggy to actually get out of bed and write the stuff down - plus, everything that feels so vital and overwhelming becomes no big deal in the light of day), they also bring uncharacteristic fretting over that which I can't control. Stuff about which, during the day, I am way zen and okay and surrendery. Like, "what if there's an earthquake?" "What if so-and-so dies?" "What if I die?" "What if I fly to the east coast and then can't get back home?" It's bizarre ... and would be interesting to understand just why the mind goes to such dark places in the dark. Not that the whys are particularly important.
Anyway, thank you as always for being exactly who you are, normalizing something that makes most of us feel crazy and alone, and calling this particular gremlin out of the closet so we can all have a word with it.
Love you dear one. Next time you're awake at 4am, check to see if I'm online ...
xoxo Joy
I hear you...if darkness (at
By Sheila (not verified) on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 9:09 AMI hear you...if darkness (at times)is part of the whole, resistance will only make it last longer :)
Sounds familiar to me
By Paula G (not verified) on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 8:09 AMSounds familiar to me Lissa... though lately my dark nights have been during the day..well, at least I'm sleeping well. Using the feelings as teachers and companions. That is my practice and part of what I teach others how to do as well...even though it isn't always pretty as you acknowledge.
Lissa, you said that in a way
By Jen B. (not verified) on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 7:59 AMLissa, you said that in a way that I couldn't. Coincidentally, I was JUST talking about this with a friend yesterday due to having a longstanding run of the "blah's." Her words were, "Well that's what Winter is: a time of darkness. We're not programmed to be full of energy during winter." Okay so true enough, but still, what is it about the middle of the night then that those negative thought loops can play on our darkest fears (and SO much larger than reality, yet we go along for the ride regardless)?! I agree with you that acceptance during this time is most likely the key: "We cannot change what we don't acknowledge"-kinda thing. Talking about it with people is probably another. Thank you for sharing this.
Oh, Pinkies (sniff)- thank
By Lissa Rankin on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 7:50 AMOh, Pinkies (sniff)- thank you. I know we all go through these dark times. The long nights and cold days don't help. And the fact that I'm facing more huge change (God, I crave the illusion of certainty right now) only exacerbates it.
But it is what it is- and I'm determined not to judge it as "good" or "bad." Why limit it in some too-small box? Why not just accept what is, knowing that we are not alone and that these times- just like the light ones- will pass with time.
Feeling your loving hugs and finding light in the arms of our community, Lissa
Lissa, I was reading and I
By Terrill Welch (not verified) on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 7:34 AMLissa, I was reading and I thought "Lissa, what were you doing in my bed!?"
Frowning ,I kept reading and mused "I didn't see your tears mixing with mine on the pillow but here they are"
I had poured my coffee in the soft light of this morning, catching sight of the cedar outside waving its branches fiercely at me in the wind. I gave thanks for the beginning of another day.
Your article Lissa "Owning Darkness: Accepting the Shadow" tells us why. I could hug you... I am hugging. Thank you. Terrill
Lissa, thank you thank you
By amy (not verified) on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 7:27 AMLissa, thank you thank you for baring yourself here. I'm a new Pinkie and was, in fact, wondering where all your goodwill and excessive upbeat optimism came from, thought you must be one of those rare souls who had a perfect birth, perfect upbringing, easy ride through life. Of course I have read more of your posts now and see that you are of the more usual variety, having had your share (and more) of pain and sadness and anguish. Somehow this post today is comforting to me, you owning all your rawness, offering it up in service to Truth.
I echo what you have said here: showing up in your authenticity and embracing the dark sides is what enables you to integrate and experience life in its fullest. There is wisdom in the Shadow, if you can own it.
And I extend to you a huge, warm, full-body hug. You are so brave, and so surrounded by L.O.V.E. You can lean on us and know that you are held, cradled, supported. Sharing with us your darkness makes you even more irresistable. You are a beacon in the darkness even while you are wrestling with it, and you have created the perfect space within which to accept our hands and our shoulders in your hour of need.
Be well, sweet Pinkie, and know that we are here with you in the darkness and the light.
Lissa, That reminds me both
By Sarah K (not verified) on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 7:26 AMLissa,
That reminds me both of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta & St. John of the Cross.Ya are in good company & I'd suggest you are totally normal! In the middle of the darkness we have to remember...the depths of the darkness mirror the the heights of the coming enlightenment.
Reading St. John of the Cross really helps me..tho I can only take him in small doses.
Dark Night of Soul is online at
http://www.jesus-passion.com/DarkNightSoulBookI.htm#PROLOGUE AND BOOK I
Oh Lissa you are not alone.
By Caren (not verified) on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 7:23 AMOh Lissa you are not alone. While it doesn't happen often, the gremlins are sometimes unwelcome guests. In those moments it is bad enough to have my head spinning out of control, but then to stare at the clock every hour on the hour is maddening. Thank you for sharing, I never thought about Owning Darkness. I think if I can accept this, I will be able to move on from it quicker.
Loving and Living in the Sunlight
Caren
I'm with Maya - it was like
By erin pickering (not verified) on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 7:15 AMI'm with Maya - it was like reading my own thoughts and experience! Lissa -you are certainly not alone. My 'dark' nights come in waves or clumps too-sometimes I learn from them, sometimes they just wear me out. Thanks for sharing this!!!! erin
Yes, darkness has been a
By Stacey (not verified) on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 7:11 AMYes, darkness has been a theme for me, too, this week! I wrote about it ("Notes from the Bottom of the Well") for the feature article of my eZine this week, and I will post it to the Pink Posse blog when I get a chance a little later.
For now, Lissa and all the lovely Pinkies, I'm so glad to know that we are together, celebrating the light *and* the darkness.
thanks so much for this
By Monica (not verified) on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 7:04 AMthanks so much for this truthful and insightful post. I am big believer in being able to speak your truth - even if it makes you, or anyone else, uncomfortable- in order to maintain authenticity. Life is not all roses, wine and sunny days, and unfortunately, we're currently in a culture that screams Pollyannaism and urges! each and everyone one of us to embrace it. Let's face it, that's just not 'keeping it real'. Positive thinking, positive karma and being the best we can for the good of all is a healthy way to live and think, but not always possible. I've come to know, that it seems those who have experienced sorrow, hurt, pain, disapointment, etc...and are able to OWN all of it, are usually those whose stars shine brightest. They are also often those from whom we learn the most.
You're welcome Sharon. Yes, I
By Lissa Rankin on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 7:03 AMYou're welcome Sharon. Yes, I don't like it either. But I'm learning it own it anyway. Yes, we can't reject the dark side of ourselves. We must love it. Only in loving, accepting and owning ourselves just the way we are can we fully experience joy.
Thank you for sharing this
By Sharon D. (not verified) on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 7:00 AMThank you for sharing this insight that is most common among humanity. Most days I am positive, but the dark catches us all at moments and we never know when that might be. Owning it (our shadow) makes it less scary somehow and usually a more productive introspective time. I don't like it when it happens but I look back almost always grateful. Thank you for writing about this! :-)
Oh Maya, I knew I wasn't
By Lissa Rankin on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 7:00 AMOh Maya, I knew I wasn't alone. That's why I wrote this. I know that, when I'm awake at 3:12am, I feel completely alone. And yet, I also know that Pinkies everywhere are also awake, starting at the ceiling, plagued by gremlins.
Let's just be in it together, knowing we are loved by each other and the divine. In truth, we are NEVER alone.
Lordy Lissa, I could have
By Maya Hanley (not verified) on Friday, 01/15/2010 at 6:54 AMLordy Lissa, I could have written that post about myself! You describe exactly what's been going on for me for a while now. Thank you for saying what I have not been able to say yet. As always, you inspire me to be better.