A Cup of Coffee With The Darkness
I wrote the following to a friend. And I decided to repost it here.
For anyone who is going through a long, dark night of the soul right now, I send you my love.
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It sucks to be laid bare. It sucks to have to face the biggest fears of your particular spirit (and everyone’s are different). The only way out is through that darkness. And sometimes it is step by tiny step. And sometimes you crawl and sometimes you find yourself standing at the window with your nose pressed against the glass wondering why everyone else seems to be living while you are barely existing and sometimes you march to the gates and scrabble over bruised and bloodied to face it day in and day out, but you face it. And every morning you tell that darkness that it is not the boss of you that you are the boss of it. And eventually you beat it back and beat it down and when it gives up, you place your hand on its head and you forgive it, and the two of you go have a cup of coffee so you can figure out how to get along in one body/spirit. And then you do.
Your particular darkness sounds like an insidious bully. If it can’t seduce you into believing it, it will try to make you feel like there is nowhere to turn. But that kind of bully will cave once you accept that it is the vestiges of your own pain.
With the pain comes a great deal of rage. And to me rage is always fearless and powerful. When I feel it, I use it. But I use it to do good, to stand up to a bully, to figure out a new way to give a big “F*ck you,” to evil (hence my uptick in animal right activism since the election). Until you are ready to make friends with that darkness and accept your own pain as part of you (which ironically is when it loses its hold on you), use your rage. Do good with it. You are the boss of it. It is not the boss of you. Remember that, and you will be free.
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To all of you who might be silently suffering right now, know you are not alone.
I send you my love.