We are living amazing times. Scary, but amazing. Scary because we don’t know what will happen next. We feel like we have no control over our lives, our freedoms have been infringed, our livelihood sources disappeared and we finally realized that the systems in place are not working as they should. We need new ones. But we have no idea how they should look and be like.
On New Years Eve I was feeling for sure that 2020 is going to be an amazing year. A year of change and growth. I just knew it! (My main extrasensory way of perception is clear-knowing). But I never imagined it would be this way. I understand why things happened though. Humanity was in such a deep sleep that only something impossible to ignore could wake it up. I guess the process of awaking is almost always done through a dark night of the soul. I think this is what humanity is going through right now. And I know exactly how frightening and difficult it is, because I lived my own a few years ago. I know how excruciating it is to have everything you hold dear and your views of the world striped away from you and torn to pieces.
The dark night of the soul is the process of shredding away everything you thought you are but you’re not, in order to discover who you really are. You find yourself between who you were and the new you, which has not yet emerged. It gives you no other option than to take a leap of faith in the midst of total uncertainty about your life. It is the biggest gift Life can give you, because it is the starting point of an authentic, empowered life.
What we can’t see when we’re going though it, is that we are not falling to pieces, we are not falling apart. We are actually being striped off of all the bullshit and the illusions we created in our minds, but which aren’t in fact the reality. I know it all to well. But all of this has to fall apart so that we can start to discover who we truly are, to step into our power and create the world we want to live in. Create our own reality, where we are the ones in charge of our life and what we choose to experience. To discover what our boundaries are and to put healthy ones in place. To create a new system that is for the highest good of all. To discover that LOVE is the thing we all crave the most and to learn how to give it to ourselves, instead of trying to get it from others and depending on them to feel loved and worthy and whole. To give ourselves so much love that, with our tanks full, we can freely give it to others. I dare you to ask yourself this: “How would my life look like if I did for myself all of the things I do for others in order for them to love me? What would it look like if I gave myself all of that time and energy?”.
When we feel loved and whole, we can also hold space for those who don’t. We can see that the people who are mean and full of hate are like that because they don’t know how to give themselves love and don’t get enough of it from others. So they settle for any kind of attention they can get, even negative attention, because anything is better than being ignored. When we know this deep in our core, we have nothing but compassion for them. And we can respond with love and kindness. Because we can see the intention behind all that hate and we can give them what they actually crave the most: love and attention. We give it in a healthy way and that gives them the chance to choose something else.
But we cannot get there without seeing our shadows first. We cannot love all of ourselves without seeing our shadows, without learning to love and integrate them. And this is what the whole humanity is going through right now. We all have to face our shadows, as messy as that is. But what I can promise you is that all of this is worth it. It is messy and scary and definitely not something we’d want to go through. But when we learn to accept and love our shadows, we can also accept and have compassion towards other people’s shadows. And that, my friends, is what makes the world a better place. This is how hate is turning into acceptance. Through love and compassion. This is what the world needs right now so that it can heal. But in order for us to be able to give that kind of love and compassion to other people, especially those filled with hate, we have to be willing to look in the mirror. To see all of it, the good and the bad. To heal so that we can heal others.
Because the truth is that none of us are perfect. There is no one who is without sin. We aren’t either good or either bad. We have in ourselves the whole spectrum. The good and the bad. The beautiful and the ugly. The kindness and the selfishness. The best example is Darth Vader. He was at first living out his light and then decided to live out his darkness.
We can try to deny one end of the spectrum, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist in us. And denying it will only make it come to the surface more powerfully, in ways we can’t control it.
Change is coming whether we want it or not. We can make it easy on ourselves by taking a look in the mirror and committing to doing the shadow work needed. This is the time when we can change the world by changing ourselves.
So, how do you choose to show up for yourself? Do you choose to take a look in the mirror and do the work, or do you choose to blame others?
