Choosing Love
RECONNECT TO YOUR SOUL
For, when you lay
like a small child
curled up
in my hand
and melt
Into surrender
floating
floating
floating
will be how you
remember
turn off your brain
light up your heart
and all those
memories
that fell apart
come back
piece by piece
until once fitted together
the picture is clear
and you are
no longer
fragmented, my dear
whole and sound
authentic and true
it’s all of you.
Lighting a Candle in the Dark
Hopefully it's now becoming clear how we are living within our boxes, our beliefs. How do we change that? How do we begin shifting from living in our Dark clouds of beliefs to living from Light, from soul? To live in the Light, we must understand the hold that fear has over us and how we are presently responding to it. When we feel fear and are in our Dark cloud, we respond by expressing more Darkness, more fear. The way we respond is often determined by the specific fear, the situation, or the moment. There are 6 principle ways we do this. We all differ in which of the responses we find ourselves using. Some people have 1 or 2 preferred responses and others use any or all of them.
Some people respond to their fear by hating themselves. They believe they are the only ones who feel such fear and thus conclude that there must be something intrinsically wrong with them.
Some people respond to their fear by pretending it's not there. If they can ignore the fear, then they can continue pretending that none of this affects them, defines them, controls them.
Some people respond to their fear by punishing those around them. They might put others down to make themselves feel better or lash out at others as a way of relieving the fear within themselves.
Some people respond to their fear by blaming others and telling themselves that they are a victim. They look for someone or some group they can blame for feeling this way.
Some people respond to their fear by simply shutting down and hiding. It’s as if a switch goes off and they respond by pulling up the proverbial blanket over their heads and escaping from life.
Some people respond to their fear by feeling powerless, helpless, hopeless. They believe that they are experiencing the fear because they are unloved, forsaken, unsupported by others, by life, by the Divine.
Each response is only a temporary fix resulting in the fear always coming back as strong as ever. All of us believe that responding to fear with any or all of these 6 Dark responses is the answer to making the fear go away. But it's not! Darkness only begets more Darkness. It's a hopeless cycle we can never escape or change unless we learn a new way of responding. So how do we escape this cycle of fear, response, fear? The answer is that only Love conquers Fear; only Light conquers Darkness.
When we see our Light, we can see through those Dark clouds of beliefs and fears. We can then understand the role our beliefs are playing in:
how we define ourselves/our box
our relationships
our understanding of reality
our sense of self with respect to our Light and our Darkness
When we are in our Light, connected to love rather than fear, we can see that there are other ways to respond to fear. We can see that the fear that seemed so big and overwhelming when seen from within Darkness, is actually small and sad. Rather than being controlled by the fear we can begin to choose how we want to respond to it, how we want to interpret it, how we want to live with it.
Imagine we have lived most of our life living in a dark room with no windows, no light, nothing but blackness. Now imagine we are being handed a lit candle. Notice how much our world changes with the introduction of that small radiant light. Notice how different the dark feels - how distant and separate it feels as we sit with our lit candle beside us, the flame keeping us warm and surrounding us with light. This is what it is like when we sit with the Light within us. Our fears feel smaller, more distant and separate from us. They are not all of who we are. When light is brought into Darkness, every aspect of the Dark changes – its intensity, its overwhelming heaviness, its impenetrability, its closed-in separateness, its hopelessness, its despair, its power over how we see, know and understand. With our light, we can now see the dark, the fear, the anger, the hate and not be overwhelmed by it, but just recognize it as an aspect of who we are. We can understand what our Dark is when we have the perspective of light. We can begin to forgive ourselves for the beliefs we have accumulated, for their effects on our behaviors and thoughts.
Just as Light changes Darkness, so does love, caring and compassion change lives filled with hatred, anger, rage and bitterness. A new perspective arises when love is introduced into an otherwise Dark life. Imagine living our lives surrounded by Light. Close your eyes and imagine moving through your day, walking in a Light filled bubble. Imagine meeting with people you love while you are in this bubble. Imagine being with people who are difficult and reactive while you are in this Light filled space. Imagine feeling fear from this place of Light.
When we are connected to the Light within us, our perspective changes. We begin to live in a world of love rather than fear. When we are caught up in our fears, our Dark, all we see in others is their Dark, their fears, their faults, their boxes. When we are in our Light, we focus instead on their Light and see past their boxes to who they truly are.
There are 5 changes that take place when we are in our Light:
We feel happier and more connected to others.
We begin to see the Light in others, their goodness and as a result they start to feel more loved.
We see mistakes and faults in others with compassion and choose not to berate them or make them “pay” for having them.
We see the mistakes and faults of others and choose to let them go, to forgive them for having them.
We invite others to see themselves from our new perspective- one of love, acceptance, and compassion.
So it is your choice. Which world do you want to live in? The world of fear and Darkness or the world of love, Light and connection? It’s as simple as that. It’s a choice you get to make – right here, right now. Even if you have lived your whole life up to this point filled with fear and darkness, you can choose to change the way you have been seeing yourself, living your life, seeing the world, living in the world – by closing your eyes and feeling that Light within you.
Surrender to Growth
Release
the impulse to
push,
pull
and twist
your way through
this expansion.
Instead,
take baby steps
forward.
Pause.
Receive.
Listen.
And bloom.
Invitation To Go Deeper
This is a way to viscerally feel darkness and light.
Find a space, perhaps a closet, where you can stand or sit in darkness so complete that you cannot see your hand in front of your face.
Notice how you feel surrounded by the darkness.
Notice how separate or a part of the darkness you feel.
Notice how big or small the space feels not being able to see walls or edges.
Notice how big or small you feel.
Notice how solid or insubstantial the darkness feels.
Notice how solid or insubstantial you feel.
Now turn on a small light, perhaps a flashlight, a pen light, or your phone light.
What has changed inside of you? inside the space?
Notice how much the darkness changes with the introduction of that one small light.
Notice who you are with respect to the dark, to the light
Notice the size of the space you are in.
Notice how solid or insubstantial the dark is when you are with this light.
When we are in the total darkness of the closet, this is how we feel when we are overwhelmed with fear, our own Darkness. The impact of turning on a small light illustrates a profound shift in our perspective of ourselves, the space, the Darkness. This is what that happens when we connect to our Light.