The Light is Already Here
Gaze with me
We all need some light and healing right now. Each day after the Winter Solstice we regain 1 to 2 minutes of day light, and this can be a sturdy metaphor for facing whatever the next step of your life journey is. The world may seem physically and emotionally dark right now and yet we can committ to a simple practice to build in hopeful and connected feelings from within the dark.
Even as we grieve our own personal losses, as we try to make sense of rapid changes in our culture and world we can hold this pain and allow light in to steady us simultaneously. The suffering and the light coexist, I know its hard to believe this at times, but it is true.
This may sound delusionally optimistic to some, my position is that you have already wittnessed this paradox if you have survived any real crisis or transformation. In the collective challlenge of the COVID 19 pandemic we saw great heroism and altruism even as loss and deep fear surrounded us. Many times in our lives what we feared and desperately avoided came to us and we were able to endure the hits and to grow. We found the light somehow, we kept breathing, we kept going.
The light was already with us and it was all around us, even when we did not see it. During my most difficult challenges I actively tried to see a hopeful light in others, I strained to borrow other people’s sureness. If I can enter this mindset, “I am in pain AND I am going to look for hope.” I do see glimmers of light, kindnesses unfolding, people doing their best in situations that are deeply challenging.
There is a Buddhist proverb, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” I say this often to clients who want to give me credit for their healing when they were the active seeker, they decided to work to make change was possible. They may have borrowed my faith, but they sought the light and they followed their own inner truth towards healing. Because they sought light, they slowly found enough to illuminate their path.
I wish I could offer a “five step plan” to see the hope, the glimmers of courage and goodness that co exist with your pain. I can not because, (as is always true with real healing) the steps are quiet, subtle and uniquely personal.
I can ask you to start by being gentle with yourself and looking for just one to two minutes of extra light everyday. When we are grieving and worried we often live in ‘loops’ of mental suffering, repeating the same fragments of a painful ‘story’ over and over without realizing we can shift. Our bodies react to the “loop” as if it is still happening to us. We sit in a prison cell with a key laying on the floor, but we can’t shift our gaze.
We miss the light that is in front of us.
Draw your mind out of these loops first by noticing them. “I am repeating the story,” is what I say to myself when I am ‘looping.’ There is immediate separation then, I am not my painful thoughts. This is the moment light can enter.
Ideas for finding moments of light? Talk to the person who rings up your groceries or makes your coffee, say sincere. “Thank yous” to anyone who helps you in anyway. Pet someone’s dog, ask them her name. Smile at a child in a store and see if you can get them to smile back. Reach out to friends, check in on them and try not to repeat the ‘loops’ with them out loud. Try to slow down in your daily drives and activities to notice your surroundings and any wildlife or unique beauty in the natural world around you.
When the Vernal Equinox (First day of Spring) comes in March, you will have a great blessing of a more hopeful mindset if you can seek just a few moments of active “light seeking” each day. Just one or two minutes.
As I ask you to consider this, I am committing myself to this practice as well.
Wishing you peace and good health as we travel forward together.
Another timely gem from you. Thanks
You are right, optimism is never delusional.