An excerpt from my journal writings that I think is relevant to this conversation`` I had the tools all around me and I ignored them. They were all there…. all the signs pointed to mindfulness and I just didn’t live it… I skirted the shores … bumping into that spiritual realm… but rarely swimming into the ocean of knowledge around me ….
And the universe is screaming. “Just pick it up!”Just read the book …. just do them all… Pray a mala, do a chant.…and just practice better… just do the things that were on your shelves.
Instead it took Being the universe to somebody else….having somebody else not listen when you’re trying to help them …. having somebody else not put in the effort to help themselves and then that is what ultimately caused my own demise and forced me to have to pick the things up and realize that that’s what the universe was trying to do for me, and my blatant refusal was what led to the ultimate learning experience, the broken-heartedness, and brokenness is what I had to reach in order to know.
When it came to Trenton I was trying to be the universe trying to save him. But he had to pick up the tools just like I had to and some people might not figure that out in this lifetime… and I couldn’t do it for him. Trying to save a past love with saving a new one… can’t be done…there are some timelines that just … cease to be in this lifetime.
I was too busy making excuses instead of making plans… instead of practicing … instead of being… I couldn’t face the woman in the mirror… and then I was drowned and forced to reckon with the wreckage left on the shores of my existence ……
And it’s there… in that brokenness that I found what made me whole… and I’m still learning through that devastating heartbreak… that that’s where the light … finally shined in.
It was a lesson I had to learn… I had to dive into hell, straight into it… and have my soul ripped across the cosmos … facing utter and complete annihilation …
That was the way… I had to go through it…
The love I sent out to everyone else trying to prove I was worthy finally started to turn back in on itself.
“Grief is the garden of compassion” - Rumi
And my heart was in a constant state of weeping and sorrow… I grieved for everyone … and I finally… I grieved for myself… still learning to navigate life as the person I am after the darkest nights of my soul… I died in March 2021… and from that death I’ve birthed version after version of myself in a spiral of transformative synchronicities ….everyone I needed…. Started to show up… and then I finally showed up for myself… and took that step into the unknown and finally releasing expectations … and here I am… open… and willing to break again and again to learn the lessons I need to learn.
Wow! What potent, deep, authentic shares. I’m blown away by this community! Thank you for showing up. Thank you for bringing your hearts and wisdom. Such a gift.
This course has motivated me to search for more offerings and inspiration on youtube. I came upon a video podcast by KD in which he was asked about his episodes of tearfulness. This is what KD said:
When you come in contact with that Love, whenever you get a break from the dark hole that we live in in our daily lives, all you can do is cry. The feeling of being released from that darkness is so sweet that tears just come…tears of release, not of sadness. What else can you do?
“My tendency to want to do away feels natural and
My urgency to dream of softer places feels understandable
… The only way out is through
The faster we’re in the better
The only way out is through ultimately”
-Out is Through, Alanis Morissette
I have asked to remain awake, to be present for my Dark Nights of the Soul. Beyond what I thought I could handle and yet here I am.
It was not until recently I was really able to embrace my them and my darkness itself. I had been “working through it. not with it…”
So I guess I am currently integrating my awareness as - the only way out is the through the expanding continuum.
My three children and I are experiencing an ongoing dark night of the soul now. My wife of 25 years and their mother died 6 days ago as the result of a rare cancer with which she was first diagnosed 12 years ago.
I’m absolutely bereft. It seems that the colors of life are all washed away, or perhaps that they’re all impossibly keen and vivid. I cannot tell the difference.
Today is our son’s wedding day. My beloved tried so hard to live to this landmark occasion but she didn’t make it. What a baffling mix of joy and sorrow…
What grief-oriented practices, readings, etc. would people recommend? I’m pretty familiar with all of the usual stuff. I seek something supercharged.
Vale of tears…and yet as I sit here in Oregon the sky grows light with dawn.
I’m so very sorry to hear about your wife and recent tragedies. That sounds very painful. My heart goes out to you and your children.
I can somewhat relate to wanting to heal from tragedy, although I could never truly understand the nature of your unique pain.
When I felt like I had absolutely nothing, when suffering felt like a state of mind, I turned inward. I started praying and mediating for peace on Earth. Focusing on the universal pain, helped my pain. I also found that not avoiding the suffering, but rather sitting with it, giving it compassion, helped me to be more graceful with my self-proceived inadequacies at the time.
Beautiful, thank you