Lately I have been working on navigating the dark and light cycles of life and within, with an equanimous mind as my foundation. Essentially, this means not seeing the light cycle as better and the dark cycle as worse or the light cycle as good and the dark cycle as bad. Both light and dark cycles are equal but different.

Ego prefers the light and has an aversion to the dark cycle because the light cycle is more pleasurable, feels more safe and is generally more fun. The dark cycle is harder to traverse for ego, it is a cycle involving fear, confusion, insecurity, loss, anger and entering the unknown. Yet the darkness is as fruitful as the light. Both are needed and both depend one each other.

Our ego’s are innocent much like a pet. Think of how your pet reacts when you have to take them to the vet. Suddenly your sweet pup is shaking, growling, deeply afraid, they may hide, run or bite. To the pet, they are being taken away from their stable secure comfortable and loving routine into a terrifying place where they are being probed and prodded, who knows what will occur!

This is a great metaphor for when we go through a dark cycle, either externally or internally. Often an external circumstance triggers the internal darkness (which I call the abyss) or the other way around but sometimes if the chemicals are off, the abyss will just come independent of an external catalyst.

No matter what causes the dark cycle, the darkness provides an opportunity to heal and grow. Rarely do we heal and grow in the light. Our egos, much like our pets, do not really care about healing or growing. We all just want comfort, love, security, ease and pleasure. It’s really very innocent. The ego is our innocent human personality and let’s face it, being human is a stinky experience. Go right past the shimmering skin and we are all guts, piss, blood and poop. Our desires take over. We go through pain and we get fragmented. Messy and sticky is our human self. It is OK!

The soul (or true self) is the part of us that desires healing and growth. Soul wants to experience being a human, to learn, evolve, experience it all, love and create! Our souls understand that healing and growing means treating ourselves and our loved ones with more love, care, compassion, skill, and integrity. Self love is imminent when we heal and grow. Not only that but when we heal and grow our soul can shine through into the world.

Childhood abuse, neglect, and life long conditioning by family and culture mixed with our ancestral epigenetic wounds cover the soul in so much mud that almost no light can shine through. Like the lotus blossoming through the mud, the darkness is the mud and the mud provides the grist needed for ego to turn within to soul to remember the true power available to each of us, within.

The power of being a soul is the power of love, creativity, and wisdom. (You do not need to be spiritual to know this as you could call the soul the authentic self and understand that the power within is the power of the human spirit backed by nature).

Ego is not bad for it is our human personality formed and forged in the fires of attachment. Ego is simply misguided. When we heal ego it allows our true self to shine through like a diamond.

The dark night of the soul is the process of the ego turning inward to reclaim this power and the only time the ego turns inward is when the external become so difficult it is forced inward through loss or tragedy. Just as much as humans tend toward craving pleasure, comfort, security, and love we also tend toward growing through the experience of loss.

It is a skill to learn how to use the darkness as a tool to heal and grow but also it just happens naturally, like how if you lose your health through a health crisis you may naturally transform from being a self focused go getter always trying to achieve the next goal to becoming a more humble and compassionate person who savors life and loves with more of an open heart. The path of difficulty brings the path of reward.

I know that the abuse I went through as a child was the catalyst for my soul shining into this world and for me becoming a healer. I am not condoning abuse nor bypassing pain or accountability here. I am only reinforcing the fact that when we use tragedy, loss, pain, darkness and the vicissitudes of life to heal and grow, the self will turn from a mud ball into a pearl. The soul can shine like a diamond into this world.

Same goes for the inner darkness. Whenever I use my abyss for healing some piece of writing or art comes out of it, as does a new layer of humor, awareness and wisdom.

Wrapping this back around the the equanimous mind…

If I know the dark cycle is as valuable as the light cycle then when I fall into the abyss of my own inner darkness or when life hands me the next loss or crisis, or both, I can reduce the unnecessary suffering by welcoming the darkness with acceptance or at the very least, non-resistance. I can allow feelings of insecurity, sorrow, anger, agony, despair, and confusion to pass through my psyche without buying what the negative narrative is selling.

With these two very distinct skills, I can create space within and space within creates choice. And when you have space to choose, you will tend toward healing, growth and back toward the light again versus getting stuck or self sabotaging. The pattern of suffering will begin to slightly change. Over time, the pattern of suffering will dissolve.

This is the process of the mud ball becoming the pearl within.

Of course if I fall into abyss and I do listen to the negative narrative, binge on crap food, watch five hours of tele, hate on myself for a night, and lose all faith in life and myself, that is ok too! (I am being a bit light and cheeky with this example as not to get too private, but you get the idea of falling deeply into your darkness where you feel disconnected from the light all together, the spectrum of this is different for everyone and I have experiences many different intensity levels on the spectrum).

On the path of healing sometimes we hit the abyss bottom and the climbing itself (back to the light) becomes the mud ball to pearl journey. Thirty five years ago, I was always in the abyss. Twenty five years ago I was in the abyss a third of the time. Progress happens. No matter how deep your darkness goes, you can turn toward healing, you can turn into your version of a pearl.

Being the pearl is a feeling of self love, an open heart and a soul shining which is natural and not forced. Becoming the pearl does not have an external marker. Maybe you never get the thing you want in the world, maybe you do or maybe it takes a really long time. The world is fickle and uncertain for as much as the New Age tells us we can always create the external reality we want. But you can always create your internal reality.

The version of happiness that stems from an open heart, self aware mind and your soul shining into the world is powerful, free, and cannot be taken. It is the dark and light cycles that keep the soul growing and evolving, turning mud into the pearl. Having an equanimous mind is a daily practice yet also roots in the wisdom of understanding the true value and necessity of dark cycles.