The Darkness Within: A Moment of Reflection
It was a sunny day, but inside, I could perceive nothing but darkness. My partner and I had just experienced one of our first big hurdles in our relationship. My entire life, I was told by a parent not to trust others at all. Depend on yourself and God, and everything will be alright. I couldn’t accept this idea. For me, we were all a part of God, so how could we not depend on each other? In this moment, I began to see from the perspective of those who came before me. This entire situation caused me to shell up and go into deep meditation and meditative practices. Before I knew what was happening to me, I achieved what some would refer to as a heightened state of mind. I started to see things that I had never seen before, and my mind gained a new dimension of thinking. The best way I can explain it is that it felt like I could see every situation around me and have several conversations at once.
My partner walked in on me during this experience. They wanted to talk about what was happening, but my ego didn’t want to let go of what I was previously feeling. When I turned to speak to them, I noticed I could now see their aura. I had no previous experience with this idea, but internally I knew what I was seeing. Around them, it seemed like all the colors that exist had decided to grace their silhouette. Instead of a face, all I could make out were waves of energy. I knew then that what I was seeing was the frequency of love. Instead of thinking about how a person who could love you could also cause pain, the first thought that came to mind was an understanding of why it happened. There was nothing personal about what was occurring. I had been so caught up in being the victim that I wasn’t willing to see the entire picture.
A Reflection Exercise: Understanding Your Pain
I would like you to take out a journal and pen—writing will be the best way to perform this exercise.
- Think about a time in your life when you believed you were wronged. What circumstances led to this event? Write it down.
- Once you reach what you believe was the catalyst, I want you to ask yourself why this occurred. Write it down.
- Complete this action five more times, being as open and honest with yourself as you can.
- By the end, look at the answers you’ve written, and underneath, describe how this makes you feel.
Vulnerability and Love: The Path to Healing
You cannot experience love until you are able to make yourself vulnerable. Trusting something or someone is one of the most vulnerable things you can experience. Because you are making yourself vulnerable, it is inevitable that pain will occur. Instead of being fixated on the pain, try to dissect it instead. All feelings start with the self. Though other people or circumstances can trigger emotions, the reality is that something cannot be triggered unless it was already there. Pain does not mark the end of something. Instead, think of it as the beginning of discovering an answer to a question that was asked a long time ago. Once you believe this, you will start to see situations for what they truly are, instead of what you want them to be. Then and only then can you freely make choices that are conducive to the life you seek.
The Ego: Friend or Foe?
Oftentimes, we think of the ego as a bad thing. The ego is just a way to describe who we are—our roles, our identities. Life experiences, nurturing, or the lack thereof are what contribute to our ego. But ultimately, it is how we react to these circumstances that determine how our egos develop. This will always be individual. Again, I would like you to take out your journal and pen. Before we start, remember this exercise is not solely for finding someone or something to blame—even yourself. This is only an invitation to explore new ideas. After completing each question, pause for a moment to reflect. If at any point you are having difficulty, please stop and return to this exercise when you are ready.
- Think of a very strong belief that you hold close to your heart. What event in your life caused you to form this belief?
- In what way has this belief affected your relationships or how you interact with your environment?
- I would like you to try, even for just a moment, to consider that belief from other perspectives or truths.
Write about this experience in your journal. Pay careful attention to how this exercise makes you feel. Once you are ready, move to the next section.
Facing Your Vulnerabilities: What Holds You Back?
- Is there a person or situation in your life that you find very difficult to interact with?
- Does this person or situation make you feel vulnerable?
- Try writing down what about that person or situation makes you feel vulnerable.
- Underneath that, write how overcoming this obstacle would change things for you.
Congratulations: You’ve Already Started Your Journey
Before we move on, I would like to applaud you for getting this far. Just exploring these ideas alone is a sign of growth. The goal of this exercise is to help us understand our ego. In doing so, we create room for growth. Because most of us treat the ego as a bad thing, we risk never truly learning about ourselves. In the worst case, we try to ignore our egos, and this action alone turns our ego into a shadow. When we ignore it, we become a shadow of ourselves. Instead, we are meant to explore our ego and let it grow. This can be done by exploring new ideas. We are only pieces of a puzzle individually. It is meant for us to find the other pieces. This doesn’t mean just becoming like others. No, we are meant to gather all these experiences to complete the puzzle of our true selves. The problem is, you won’t be able to complete the puzzle until you can see it first.
A Personal Story: The Power of Vulnerability
There is someone close to me who is full of potential. Throughout my life of knowing them, I rarely experienced them in a vulnerable moment. It’s almost like they try to maintain an image of strength to prove their worth to others. On the surface, everything seems great. Internally, I can see their frustrations and regrets.
This individual has spent their life maintaining what they think others need, while ignoring their own personal journey. The more difficult part of the equation is that, by ignoring their own needs, they have started to experience health issues. They have now convinced themselves that it is too late to pursue their dreams.
A study conducted by the University of Scranton found that only 8% of adults in their test pool achieved their goals. With such a high failure rate, one could ask why bother trying. The other side of that coin is that you will always fail if you never try. This is a vulnerability we must all face: the fear of failure, which opens us up to being honest with ourselves and daring to give everything to our dreams. We dare to fall in love with ourselves and the dreams that have always been there, with us every step of the way.
A Dream, a Lesson, and a New Understanding
I would like to end today’s post with a story. A lot of my life experiences have come through dreams. At one point, I was experiencing a great deal of health-related issues. No matter what healthcare professional I saw, nothing seemed to help my condition. One night, I had a dream that I woke up in a bedroom, and a giant shadowy figure attacked me. I woke up gasping for breath, my heart and head pounding like a drum. This wasn’t the first occurrence of this dream—in fact, at this point, I had them my entire life. This time, however, was different. I remember wanting to go back to sleep to see this figure again. You see, I had so much going “wrong” in my life that I wanted to do something to improve.
My thought at the time was, it was my dream, and I could do anything I wanted there. I felt powerful. I went back to sleep and faced, what back then I still called, the devil. A strange thing occurred then. As I stared at this figure, void of any form, I sensed myself within it. Without thinking, I grabbed this figure into my arms, and it slowly transformed into the size of an infant child. I held it close as tears streamed down my face. I finally recognized it as a part of me that I had long forgotten—one I was afraid to let others see. I woke from the dream feeling like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Within a couple of weeks, seemingly all my ailments went away.
Harnessing the Power of Vulnerability
The fact of the matter is, our vulnerabilities can be very powerful. Just like a fire that appears to consume all, it can either be something we fear or something we harness. If you fear it and try to ignore it, this will only cause it to grow, consuming other parts of your life. But if you choose to harness it, you will open many more doors. Use the exercises included in today’s reading and remember that the power has always been within you. It is time for you to claim it.
Lights & Truth 