The Balance

Life is an interesting thing. It comes with heartache, mental and physical strain, pain, etc, but with it also comes joy, love, happiness. The many twists and turns that life takes you down on its path builds you, shapes you, changes who you are, and in many cases those around you. The effects ripple out like a stone cast into water. Most people tell you that you need to be only happy, be joyful, look at the bright side of life, and yes, this is true, you should look to enjoy the many bright lights in your life. But rarely does anyone cover the darker side of life. The way to handle the stress, the pain, the trauma, what to do when it comes, as it comes for everyone. I understand the thinking of just focusing on the good, but is the good as bright without the bad? I have brought this up before and gotten some blank stares from people so let me give you and example. If you walk from room to room in your house with all the lights on, there are none brighter than the others. they are all just on. Yes it's nice you can see, but do you really appreciate them, or are they just part of life and you don't fully grasp how important they are? Now picture it’s the middle of the night and there are no lights on, whether it be a power outage, just turned off, whatever, suddenly the light in the room you are in turns on, it’s blinding, you get taken aback from it, you are happy you have a light to be able to see. You appreciate it more as you have experienced a time without it. Without the pain, trauma, darkness of life you can't fully appreciate the light. Now I’m not saying that staying in the dark is where everyone should live their lives waiting for the light to come on, but to only focus on the light and avoid the dark can be just as problematic. I have experienced a number of people in my time on this planet that have only focused on the light, bright and cheery day in and day out, but when the "bulb" burns out and suddenly something happens to them that shuts the light off, they panic; they don't know how to cope. Suddenly bright and cheery leads to a darkness they don't know how to handle, some recover, others spiral into the darkness. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that pain and darkness are not necessarily the pure evil people make them out to be. Suffering is a part of life, has been for eons. Do I wish suffering on anyone? No. Do I feel that everyone will have suffering and will need to find a way to handle it, yes. This is where the self-awareness and understanding of who you are and how to heal come into play. 

I guess this is a long winded way of saying that pain, trauma, hardship, darkness shape us just as much as the light, happy, joyful times. This is where the healing journey comes in. It's what you do with the darkness that matters. Living in and with the light often is the easier path. Darkness, this is where people struggle. They get caught in it, it pulls them in. Not knowing how to handle it, how to get out, waiting for someone to turn the lights back on, but not knowing how to ask for them to do it. Like any other situation it’s scary at first, not knowing what to do, how to move, how to proceed with a "normal" life. People often don't see the light in themselves. Their ability to light their own path. They seek help from others, whether it be family, friends, or medical help. Sometimes this works, but there are times where it only pulls them out enough to see the light for a minute before plunging back into the darkness. I was reminded earlier this week of a time in my life I have not thought about for a very long time. I had buried it down, had not talked about it for many years. In talking about it I realized that I had not healed from it fully, I did what most people do, push it into the darkness and move forward hoping to find the light. I bring this up to show that in my journey so far this technique works for a time, but eventually you trip over whatever you buried in the dark; it comes back in an unexpected way. Something you were talking about, someone you were talking to, something reminds you it's there. Do you push it back down, letting it pull part of you with it? Or do you finally shine your light on the situation, sit with it, and understand what you were supposed to learn from it to prevent yourself from repeating the lesson and going through similar pain and struggles. ‘Cause in the end that's what most of life is about, learning lessons. How to handle situations, how to cope with different things, how to become a better, stronger you. The healing journey is a long and winding road. There is no map, there is no easy road. It boils down to you, learning, adapting, moving forward. Growing up I always heard the quote "god won't give you anything you can’t handle." For a while I believed it, then for a while, in my darkest times, I thought it was bullshit. It wasn't until within the past few years that I realized, it's not that you won't be given things you can't handle, it's the lesson you are to learn while handling it, that is the message there. Knowing that if a similar situation arises again, you can take it head on. You can push through it, spending less and less time in the darkness with each suffering that comes. To you and everyone out there, please listen to yourselves, learn from the lessons life puts in front of you, be the best and strongest you can be.