On Darkness
I remember at one of my lowest-of-low points in my life, I felt so hopeless, so alone in my experience.. and I didn’t think I’d ever feel normal again.
Trigger warning:
I was raped at age 21, and then I bought a bunch of pills to end my life with…
As I texted my high school sweetheart to say goodbye, he invited me over. I decided this was a good sign, put away the pills, and went to his place.
We made out and had sex, and I remember feeling slightly alive again for the first time in days…
Then as we were laying in bed talking, he got angry, rejected me, and kicked me out of his place immediately after I told him about my rape because my rapist didn’t use a condom and I was “tainted.” I had endangered him in the name of seeking love, connection, safety, and acceptance.
It’s hard to describe the anguish young 21 year old Ashley felt in that moment…
I felt like I couldn’t do anything right and no one, especially myself, would ever love me again.
“What is the point of trying if I’ll be this miserable, if life will feel like death, forever?”
Not that I could have possibly received then the wisdom and personal perspective I now carry, but I thought about what I would say to or share with that version of myself if I could go back to love on and comfort 21 year old me.
Some of my thoughts:
When we’re in a downward spiral, part of “the point“ is to not know what’s happening, why, or when it will end.
The loss of perception and perspective and control, teaches us.
The patience required to navigate AND completely surrender navigation, teaches us.
The feeling of making poor choices we know are poor in those moments, of feeling so low we just drag ourselves even lower, teaches us.
In hindsight, in my opinion, there is no “wrong” experience.
The goddess lives in shadow and in light. LIFE happens in chaos and in peace.
Our shadow has consciousness, just as much as our light.
I don’t wish them on anyone, AND, our dark nights of the soul are necessary, otherwise they wouldn’t exist.
I don’t wish trauma on anybody AND traumatic events make meaning out of life.
Just the same as the most blissed out experiences of perfection do.
I would never be where I am today, would never have learned my deep Self and my love and my peace as I feel I have at this moment, if I hadn’t journeyed through that dark night of the soul (and many others).
What I wish I could have grasped when I was younger is that the sooner we can learn to accept ALL parts of life, the sooner we can stop experiencing the feeling of insanity when ALL different kinds of life happen to (for) us.
(You know the saying… Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results… In my perspective, insanity is living a life in this reality on this earth, and constantly wishing it were different.)
The sooner we can meet all parts of our SELVES, our negative thoughts and behaviors, too, with loving acceptance, the sooner we can approach life from a grounded place of clarity and love instead of a reactive or resistant place of emotionality.
AND, sometimes the only way we can do this is to live through the periods when we can’t love or accept ourselves, too.
Sometimes I liken this to experiencing psychedelics…
The first time (or every time) we journey, perhaps there is a panicked resistance to what is happening…
“When will this end? Will I be like this forever? I need this to STOP!”
And that can make our entire psychedelic journey terrifying, overwhelming, jarring, ungrounding.
And, if we can allow ourselves to shift into acceptance and surrender, to approach what is happening in our consciousness with curiosity, the entire psychedelic journey can shift to beauty, clarity, understanding, joy, bliss, hope.
Nothing has changed — we’re still in the same out-of-control experience — except our mind, our thoughts.
The same is true for pregnancy, birth, postpartum.
How many times do we women giving birth resist our sensations, or the length of time it’s taking, or how overwhelming it can feel?
How many times did I mistakenly wish for my child to be less needy, nurse less, sleep more, be more independent sooner?
These thoughts and desires, either in psychedelic journeying, pregnancy/birth/motherhood, or dark nights of the soul (all of which are different versions of mind-altering journeys!), cause suffering.
What I’ve found is expressing these sorts of thoughts of resistance to what is, in those moments of overwhelm, CAN bring relief ONLY if I express them and then ALLOW myself to sink in deeper to the experience, exactly as it is, chaos and darkness and all.
In life, we are being invited to allow ourselves to feel the expansiveness of something — the void — which is far more powerful than we normally allow ourselves to experience.
And to be OK with the fact that the void is also part of reality and part of US. As individuals and a collective.
There is medicine there.
And if we are able to drink the bitter medicine straight from the endless and seemingly suffoacting maw of the Void/Goddess/Darkness… then we REALLY openourselves to experience LIFE… the full spectrum of it.
We meet God because we can clearly see and accept ALL of what IS.
We look around and see beauty and perfection, hope, joy, expansiveness… in all parts, the darkness and the light.
And we allow ourselves to step into the brighter future that we are being asked to create, with all the necessary tools and guidance needed to navigate it as we build it.
Purely from that shift of the mind into acceptance of what is.
Same reality, different lens.
There is nuance needed here, to be able to land in grounded clarity, rooted in ability to take loving action, instead of “Stockholm Syndrome-like” apathy and resignation without action.
So… :)
In this season of darkness (and light), I’d like to offer you…
Some sisterhood and mentorship in your own spiralic life journey…
If you’re craving this now, as I was then, please reach out.
I’d love to be a lighthouse, a safe harbor, to witness you, and help you discover tools to celebrate life exactly as it is, no matter where you are… I’d love to witness you amplify your own inner compass to guide yourself Home, into this one beautiful life we are living!
So you can blossom into your fullest expression of Truth, Wisdom, Beauty, and Strength.
We need you in that space <3
