Originally written; June 28th, 2012

Over the last few days I have been tired, lacking in motivation and struggling with fear and anxiety in varying degrees of intensity. Yep, yet ANOTHER dark night of the soul. SIGH. It is such a stark contrast from the high states of joy and energy I have been flying in more and more, that I am lured into believing something is “wrong”. This of course, only serves to plunge me further into the depths. When in the grips of my darker side, I find it difficult to remember there ever was lightness, joy and bliss. And, paradoxically, the harder I fight to get back into the light, the longer the struggle and the more pain I feel. Without fail it is always the moment I remember, “OH! I am resisting!” and LET GO, that I find the relief I was looking for and even the bliss, though of a different flavor. I know that many of us have been struggling with this so I was drawn to share my thoughts.

Those of us on a spiritually focused path, often find the shadow side difficult to accept. I mean it makes sense… of course we would rather be skipping through the daisies than crying in the them, but the inconvenient truth is we are not meant to be on the high side of expansion at all times. There would be NO coin without the other side. In attempting to keep the coin from ever flipping, many of us find ourselves burnt out and actually in a dangerously repressed state of fear and even terror. If you never utter a cross word or admit that you even think one, for fear of “manifesting” what you don’t want,  you are not in a state of positivity… you are in a HUGE state of fear. Positive thought techniques are powerful and totally necessary, but not as a substitution for allowing all of our states to BE and learning the art of moving THROUGH rather than around. I am saying this to shed some light on a tendency I have observed since the advent of “The Secret” to try and bliss talk our way out of our natural states. What results is a bunch of walking around petrified to feel anything but the most bright and sunshiney emotions. THIS is NOT high vibration. This state is actually the height of constriction and FEAR. In the effort to find happiness, and create ” the life of our dreams”, we can repress ourselves into some of the most excruciating of human conditions.

If we look at ourselves as a microcosm of the cycle of night and day, and just another part of nature with all its flux and flow, it would seem crazy to freak out every time the sun went down for fear that it would never rise again. But that is exactly what many of us do on an emotional and spiritual level! Then it is the very fear that keeps us overlong in darkness, perhaps long after our spirits are ready to rise. The difficult part is that our own internal rhythm is not as physically apparent as the rise and set of the sun so we can make all sorts of stories about our “night”.  This is where trust is so important! I am finding over and over again that the more I accept when I am feeling moody or tired and just allow and even love myself, without making it wrong, the more grace I find… even in the darkness. The more I purely enjoy when I am inspired and full of energy, the easier it is to allow myself to rest when it’s time. In knowing that the sun WILL rise, I lose my fear of the dark. And even when I forget all this, it’s just that much easier to pick myself up off the floor and start again.

The easiest and best way through I have found in these times is to BREATHE… and not just once. A LOT, slowly and deeply. In through the nose and out through the mouth.. sometimes all day long if need be. Best when paired with loving thoughts directed at yourself, this allows the state to pass naturally as what it is, energy… with no story to anchor it in place. The trick then is to remember to breathe! If you go too far down the rabbit hole you can forget this entirely. So if you ever see me wound up with my eyes bugging out, please remind me to breathe and I will do the same for you!

The funny thing is, yesterday even in my funk, I was gifted by getting flirted with by a beautiful man while at wholefoods.  I was inspired that even in a bad mood, with no makeup on, and breathing deep like it was my job… my beauty still landed for another. I am so grateful for the reminder that how we seem to ourselves on the inside is rarely how we are perceived and that we are ALL far more beautiful than we are often aware.

In love, beauty and truth,

Anah