Discover why it’s important to honour the dark and return to the light, and how this is a gift to yourself and others.

Most people start out their spiritual journeys because they are in the dark, and seeking some kind of understanding for their pain, and hopefully, some kind of healing toward it.

Therefore, jumping down people’s throat with love and light, and what has come to be named as ‘toxic positivity’, when they are in a really dark place can be super detrimental to their hope, confidence, and readiness to begin an awakened journey.

By jumping straight to the positive, you can make yourself, or another, feel invalidated. You can feel ‘less than’ for not being able to see or reach the lighter side of the situation. It can make someone feel like a failure, or as if they are not as spiritually and emotionally evolved because they are unable to immediately let it go and move on.

The best gift you can give yourself and your loved ones at this time of year (or any time of year), is to hold space for them wherever they are at. To witness their pain and suffering, without trying to help, to heal, to fix, or to slap a “you’ve got this” shaped band aid on it.

Don’t tell them (or yourself for that matter) to suck it up, or get over it and move on. Don’t tell them to stop worrying, to put on a brave face, or to stop overreacting. Don’t tell them to let it go, or be present, or surrender, or forgive. And for the love of Goddess don’t tell them everything happens for a reason!

Don’t use phrases like “at least”, or “it could be worse”, or my personal favourite, “just look on the bright side”. Avoid going off on a long tangent about when the same thing happened to you or your boss’s cousin’s mother. Don’t tell them not to cry, or to wipe their tears away – tears are sacred and should be honoured.

See them, hear them, feel them, witness them – that’s the most precious gift we can give each other on our healing journeys.

Our Souls are pure love and light, they don’t know grief, anger, hate, shame, fear, and guilt. So they come here, to Earth, in order to live a human experience.

To live in the darkness and the shadows. To feel the full range of emotions a human life has to offer us – the love and the hate, the ease and the struggle.

Meeting yourself where you’re at, and holding yourself in that darkness, pain and ugliness, without judgment or expectation, that is one of the bravest things you can do, and is a MASSIVE act of self-love.

These painful emotions have to be felt, they have to be processed, to be witnessed and heard, before we can move through them and toward the light at the end of the tunnel.

By bypassing this process we do ourselves, our emotions, and our human experience, a great disservice. We bypass the whole reason our Soul decided to embark on this human journey.

But as I mentioned earlier, we don’t want to build a house here and set up shop, we just want to honour the dark, and move through it. Then, and only then, is it time to return to the light. To remember that you are enough, to return to gratitude and surrender.

Knowing when it’s a time for witnessing the pain and honouring the darkness, and when it’s time to move into love and light, is a true art form (and of course there will totally be times for flitting back and forth between the two).

It’s not a one-size-fits-all formula (we are dealing with human emotions after all!). This takes practice, intuition and learning from our mistakes.

We must accept that we will get it wrong from time to time. We will say the wrong thing, we will piss people off and trigger them and make them more sad or mad than when we found them. But that’s ok. Just do your best and keep trying.

The darkness is my teacher, and the light is my guide. Why do you think I’m called Bella Luna? A shining light in an endless night sky. Your guiding light in a sea of darkness.

It is my gift, my calling, to meet you in your darkness, to sit with you, to witness, hold, hear and be with you. To reflect back to you the light within yourself, the one you thought was lost, and show you that it was there all along.

It is time to return to the light, and the light is you.

I now invite you to reflect on the dark and light within yourself. Consider which side of this fence you feel most at home, which side is your comfort zone. Ask yourself if you too have been victim to, or perpetrator of, toxic positivity.

Sharing is caring

If you feel comfortable to do so, I would love if you would share any thoughts, feelings, insights, or reactions that you have had to this post in the comments below. All of you is welcome here.

Share my Sh*t on your Socials