Do You Hide Your Light to Avoid the Dark?

Kindness

I used to be kind to everyone. It’s in my nature to be kind, I’ve also been massively co-dependent. It was easier to be kind than say no, I got to avoid a confrontation.

After years of being in relationships where my kindness was mistaken for weakness, and I let it, I went through quite a shocking heartache, and so it was easier to numb out and not feel my heart than deal with the pain.

I was never ever going to open myself to bad treatment again, I did not want anymore narcissists in my life, or people who took advantage of my kindness.

Softness

Any chance anyone might go for my underbelly I was going to be at the ready.

I was hardened and I wasn’t going to take it anymore. So in hiding my pain and my softness I didn’t get to experience joy or happiness.

Foreboding Joy

Brene Brown, the famous speaker at TED, whose talk went viral, says in The Power of Vulnerability  – about forboding joy. How in her research experiencing joy is by far the most scariest emotion.

I totally agree.

Who hasn’t experienced something wonderful and then waited for the other shoe to drop, for something bad to happen. You look at your kids and feel a blissful connection then rehearse in your mind what would you do if they died and how would you cope?

It’s as if we feel so exposed when we feel joy and happiness that we think we had better dampen it down, just in case something bad happens.

Plenty of times in my life I have been enthusiastically happy and joyful and someone said something to take the icing off my cake. It’s the tall poppy syndrome, if we aren’t happy we don’t want others waving it in our face.

Gratitude

Brene talks about how joyful people are people who actively participate in some form of gratitude practise. It doesn’t come naturally to us so we have to make a habit of it.

Law of Attraction

I had a discussion the other day about how I have issues about the Law of Attraction and the practise of focusing on the light to avoid the darkness. What resonated with me was that often people focus on the light with their upper chakras and not their lower ones.

Wanting light to avoid the dark is different than whole-heartedly embracing your darkness AND your light.

Its like the yin/yang symbol.

Can you let both aspects into your life? The Light and the Dark?