It seems my multitude of heavy metals-detox mistakes
have summoned the part of myself that can roughly be called darkness. I thought I had erased this
side of me—that it didn’t exist any longer. But now for weeks she has been
saying, Yo, b*tch, I’m here—what the f**k
do you want?
This is the part of me that is capable of immense lust, hatred, and violence. I will never act on these things—certainly not hatred or violence, anyway. And not in a big way, at least.
The thing is, we all express these aspects of darkness in some ways. I’ve had some bad habits that could qualify as self-directed violence, in addition to a period of self-harm I underwent a few years ago. So I have embodied violence—just not in the “big ways” (like physically assaulting another person) you’d normally expect. Likewise, stepping on an ant is violent. Throwing up your middle finger is hateful. Eating yet another piece of fruit after you told yourself you were done is lustful. These are small acts, but they exude darkness nonetheless.
So in these small ways, darkness may remain with me. But as far as the big stuff goes, I know I will not act on these things, because I see through them. I know they’re not really me. The cells in my body would never carry out the movements necessary to such actions. The cells are too smart for that. They wouldn’t allow it.
Even when I was at the lowest of all low points I have ever known, darkness had an incredibly powerful presence in me—and still, I did not act on it. Never in a big way. I guess that means that this darkness actually isn’t that powerful—clearly something else is stronger. Perhaps it’s my own conscience, or a natural drive for life. Maybe it’s even an inherent, deep-seated knowing that I am primarily a conscious being, and this simple fact makes everything else okay.
Darkness has won small battles, but it has never won the war. And it never will. From the perspective of the light, there is no war. That’s why darkness cannot win—it has no one to fight against. Light just is. It can’t be fought. This means it cannot be defeated, either.
A Dialogue with Darkness
As I was saying, that dark part of myself is here for a visit, nonetheless. I thought I had closed the door on all that, and the door then disappeared into oblivion. But it instead turns out that this part of myself was simply under lock-and-key for 3 and a half years, and Pandora’s box has now been opened.
Of course, I’d be lying if I said that this part of myself never surfaced at all in these last few years, and now it suddenly is here full-force. The only difference now is that it has a more constant and deliberate presence. I feel I have been in this presence enough for the last few weeks that instead of reacting nonconsciously to it and just hoping it goes away, I now can twist my head on straight and face this consciously.
When you haven’t experienced darkness, it makes you freak out and wet your pants. When you have previously experienced darkness, and it returns to you once again, it might make you freak out at first; but, once you say, I remember how you roll, it’s like meeting again with a long-time rival, who, through their conflicts with you, knows you better than anyone else ever has. Batman and the Joker in The Dark Knight are a decent example. Even better is, Luke, I am your father.
Now, let’s get to the good stuff. I’ll leave you to figure out who is who here. Perhaps it doesn’t matter in the end anyway.
~
You’re weak. Look at how much you squirm and struggle when I come around. Why is that? I’m not even real! You’re making me up. I’m all in your mind. Yet, when you conjure me up, you let your life stop in its tracks entirely.
Look at how powerful I am. I alter lives. I issue commands. I control thought-processes. I’m like a God on Earth. Maybe I am.
Do you know why humans always equate “power” with “evil?” It’s because “good” people don’t know how to use their power. They slough off their power. They get caught up too much in social norms and morals and keep themselves from doing anything truly outstanding.
Don’t you find it strange that the people who take for themselves appear to be more powerful than people who claim to be “good?” Why is the world like that? Why are so-called “good” people so small and useless? Why are their efforts so futile? Why is it that all the big, bad, “powerful” people get the big results that they want?
Come on. You know that people who have lots of money and fame and accomplishments aren’t necessarily happy.
Oh, but are YOU happy? Are you so-called “good” people really happy living your mundane, average lives that appear to be going nowhere? Don’t you want to make something big happen? Don’t you want to succeed in a big way? Why not? Are you just going to keep regarding success as “evil” like every other useless goody-two shoes out there?
Hm. I know why I need you here. It’s because you’re powerful. I am too, but I’m not as effective as you. Still, life isn’t supposed to be a series of spectacles. We have to take time to study, reflect carefully, refine our plans, think, and practice. It’s not like everything happens all at once. Plus we have to take care of ourselves, too. It’s a steady progression, but it’s a forward-progression nonetheless.
Look at you. Look at how much you want people to hang on every word you say and admire you for the things you write. You call yourself a being of light, but is that so accurate? You want people to eat out of the palm of your hand. The reality is that YOU’RE eating out of the palm of THEIR hands. You’re like a pathetic donkey that has to wait for the farmer to give him his food.
Listen to me. I’m on your side. You know you don’t want your life to be this way. That’s not you. You don’t have to feed from some idiot’s hand and then angrily bite that hand. You don’t have to be at war with yourself. I assure you the part of yourself you feel like you’re fighting with is not me. Yeah, I’ve been really loud lately—that’s because I want you to know I’m here, and I want to talk to you. And I’m here to tell you that I’m not the enemy. I am not the source of your problems.
Well, if the dark side of myself is not my enemy nor the source of my problems, then what is?
The true enemy is what we call “the gray zone.” It’s no man’s land. It is the area of indecision. It is the broken attempt to combine the two of us. When you are in the gray zone, you imagine you are conveying yourself as a being of light, yet your mind is simultaneously tainted by darkness. In this zone, you speak words of wisdom (sometimes, anyway), and at the same time hope that the idiots listening to you will bow at your feet and leave dollars there.
Well, what the hell—how do you expect me to get past that?
Decide. Decide who you are. You have to decide clearly, commitingly, without question who you are. Are you light, or are you darkness? That is the only way out of the gray zone. “No man’s land,” is really, “The Land of No Decision.”
I feel like I’ve been through this dialogue in some form so many times. Why am I having to have it again?
Because you don’t listen. You listen to every goddamned person on this Earth except yourself. Even as you’re writing right now, you’re listening to things going on in other rooms instead of to me and to your own conscience. Why? What gives? Do you not like yourself or something? Why can’t you see that you’re AWESOME? You’re frackin’ powerful! My goodness, you spiritual people nearly bring me to tears! You talk all about goodness and inner wisdom, and yet you’ll hardly even take a moment to acknowledge your own greatness. Don’t you realize what sort of mixed messages you’re sending to people? Jesus, if you really understood how powerful you are, you would listen to yourself all the time! But you don’t understand this, so instead you distrust your own thoughts. That gives way to the gray zone, and then your thoughts become even murkier, and now you can hardly know yourself at all.
What do you want me to do with this information?
Just listen to yourself. Know who you are. Decide from your own intelligence. It’s so simple! Yet you almost never do it!
I mean, it’s not like my intuitive hits are always accurate.
Oh, come on—do you really know that? Didn’t you hear a word I just said to you? When you don’t listen to yourself in the first place, how can you expect your intuition to function fully? You’re lucky it registers at all. You hardly even give it a chance to show itself. You have no idea of all that it can do.
This is strange. I usually associate evil with a lack of intuition.
Evil is the same as a lack of intuition? I laugh my ass off! How do you think the forces of darkness become so powerful in the first place—by listening to a bunch of idiots who are hardly involved in the situation? No, you dummy! The supervillains become super by listening to themselves! Haven’t you ever heard the saying, “If you want things done right, you’ve got to do them yourself”? Every frackin’ villain ever says this at least once!
You’re amusing and interesting to listen to. I wish I could integrate some of you without being a bastard.
Oh, but you can! Don’t you know that the dark parts of yourself can be re-channeled into light? You can get all the good stuff without the bad—if you decide which side you are totally and unwaveringly committed to.
Are you saying that I can bring your power into my life without the darkness itself?
Yes! Of course that is what I am saying! Eventually, we will not have to have conversations like this anymore, where you’re over there and I’m over here. Instead I will be so much a part of your natural voice that you will not consider me a separate entity to yourself.
I’m just afraid of inadvertently taking on dark qualities—or exacerbating the ones I already have.
Nonsense! You know it’s not the darkness you’re afraid of. You know you can easily choose to be other than the darkness. What you’re afraid of is the power. You’re afraid of how capable you’ll be when you finally make me one with you, and re-channel all of the darkness into light. You’re afraid of how focused, deliberate, and responsible you’ll be. You’re not afraid of me, chum. You’re afraid of you.
Well, it’s an error to say that I’m afraid of being “responsible,” because I’m already 100% responsible for everything that I experience. It’s the same with being powerful: I already am infinitely powerful—it’s just a matter of how I direct that power. I, like many other people, use some of my power against myself, and that’s why I experience weakness. It’s not that I am weak per se—it’s just that I’m using my power in a way that makes me seem weak.
Thanks for the philosophy lesson, baby. Look: you want girls, yes?
Sure. I won’t question what you mean by that.
Good. You want money, yes?
Yeah, money would be nice.
Oh, come on. Don’t be such a limp noodle about it.
I mean, money isn’t that exciting. It’s like clothing. It’s useful to have, but I’m not going to get all amped up about it or center my life around it.
Fair enough. You want a new town to live in, yes?
Yeah, I do.
And you want your body to be healthier?
Of course I do.
Alright. Good. Well, you can have all these things and more—IF you accept your power and take charge of the full scope of who you are. That means taking every last drop of darkness known to you and integrating it into light. Power must be focused to be used effectively—otherwise it will either dissipate pathetically or backfire and attack you, like an autoimmune disease. Let’s get rid of the disease here and get that immune system working properly—capeche?
I’d love to do that. It is difficult to say yes.
WHY? Why NOT say yes?
I just don’t know if this will work.
What do you MEAN it “won’t work?” Are you mad?
Gosh, I’d love to trust you, but not much has worked for me before. I feel like I end up back at square one year after year. How can I be sure this will be any different?
You have to DO it, baby! That’s what will make it different!
I’ll tell you the truth. I’m just worried that no matter what mindset shifts I make I’ll keep running the same ineffective patterns that I always have. I’ll just keep thinking I’m so smart while continuing to have “meh” interactions with people, and then I’ll get angry, and then I’ll argue with myself, and then I’ll write an article about it, and then I don’t know, and then it will start over again.
This is NOT a mindset shift. This is a complete change in your whole being—in who you are. This is not at all about mindset. You are committing to a clear, focused, unquestionable idea about who you are. That’s it. It’s so simple.
On the light side your power is about channeling your power towards others, rather than towards yourself like “evil” people do. The primary difficulty you face is that you run the constant risk of letting those people run your life and determine your every last action. Likewise, on the dark side the primary difficulty is that you run the constant risk of crushing the people you take from and leaving yourself with nothing to take. Stated another way, the challenge of being a lightworker is that you listen too much, and the challenge of being a darkworker is that you talk too much.
So what you have to do is take power of yourself. Enter that state of "realness” that you like so much. That’s how you be powerful without overpowering other people. People will respect you when you express no qualms or ambiguity about yourself. And that’s also how you channel your power to give to and empower other people—by first being alright in your own power. You can’t give ambiguity and uncertainty to others—at least, you don’t want to do that. You gotta just be cool with yourself, and then share what you’ve got with others. This isn’t just a one-way linear process, either: being cool with yourself and sharing with others feed into one another. So the arrow in the equation points both ways.
This makes sense to me. I know it’s true.
My dear, do you think I would deliver to you anything but the truth?
Yes, I do. You’re amoral. You just do what serves you no matter what.
Well, do you imagine this information serves me somehow?
Yes. Since you’re a part of me, it only makes sense that helping me to grow will in turn serve you. As such, that means that the information you’ve given to me probably is true.
Pah! You and your “probably”s and “maybe”s! Be certain for once! Listen to your own wisdom! Forget about trying to appease other people! Is the information true, or is it not?
This information is true.
Thank you.
And thank you. Anything else?
No. Just get ready for the floodgates of power to open. This will take as long as you command it to, across as many years or even lifetimes as you need. The truth is that the process is never truly complete, but you can go a damned long way.
Right. It’s a “beginning of infinity” effect. The higher you climb up the ladder, the taller the ladder gets.
Exactly.
And that’s what’s so awesome about this reality. It keeps going.
Yes, it does. And that’s what we love about it here.
So, what do I do now?
You know what to do. You know how to channel your power properly. The question isn’t whether you’re capable of doing it, but whether you choose to do it. All capability is a matter of permission: you can do as much as you permit yourself to do, and no more. A person who is growing generally gives themselves more and more permission over time. A person who is dying, on the other hand, allows even less of themselves. It is for this reason that they die—they do not allow themselves to live.
That makes such beautiful sense.
I know. I’m so intelligent, aren’t I?
Yes you are, you self-obsessed bastard.
Thank you.
:)
Play it Forward
Darkness is not the enemy. Stagnation, doubt, and indecision are the real enemies we face. When we are reluctant to make clear decisions we doubt our own intelligence; then, we stagnate, and life becomes repetitive, if not arduous and even thankless.
The way forward is through growth, self-trust, and clear decisions. This is how we experience the true power that flows through us and get the results we want (and more). This is how we create lives that are fulfilling, meaningful, and on purpose.
Decide who you are. Then, trust your own intelligence. When you do that you will grow, and life will become engaging. You will be constantly in gratitude for it.
One more thing: just remember that it’s okay to play—even with your supposed enemies, and with all facets of life. For all you know, your play will turn out to yield something of immense value beyond its own self.
Go play. The darkness will not stop you. Only you will.
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