RCS meets Dark Night of the Soul
“It is much more significant than simple misfortune. It is a deep transformation, a movement toward indescribable freedom and joy. And in truth it doesn’t always have to be unpleasant.”
Gerald May Dark in Night of the Soul
There are indeed times when I wish life just wasn’t so hard. So painful. Nights where I prefer that I wasn’t so aware I live in a nation where more Vietnam War vets have committed suicide than were killed fighting the War. Nights where the mention of Wall Street doesn’t remind me that I lost the entirety of my retirement investment/savings in the crash of 2007. And now that I live downtown, nights where homelessness and crime, drug addiction and alcoholism, nights where prostitution and the sex industry weren’t quite so much in my face.
I woke up this morning at 5:00 a.m. and at 7:30 still hadn’t drifted back to sleep. Might have been the pain of my recent ankle surgery. Maybe it was wondering how I’m going to keep working another ten years. Or how to get my practice going so that I can quit physical labor. Maybe my aching body and the pain of a frozen shoulder made way worse by a night of restless sleep. My mind doesn’t always behave in the equanimous way I wish it would. Sometimes in the darkness as I first wake up, I just worry. Sometimes a little. Sometimes a lot.
About five years ago, I began reading about, exploring and working with St John of the Cross’s Dark Night of the Soul. An attempt to learn how to use the emotionally and spiritually dark and painful periods of my life as opportunities for personal and spiritual growth. A seed was planted in that exploration that continues to germinate. What if I didn’t see suffering as the world being wrong or bad? What if I didn’t need to blame when people or life wore me down? What if I didn’t take suffering so personally? What if I didn’t take pain as a sign that if I only tried harder, applied more skilled means I could avoid it?
Every time I’ve gone through a particularly difficult time in life, I’ve come out the other side a freer, bigger, more tender/loving man. With a bigger picture of life and a fuller palette for appreciating/loving its flavor. I’m not the only person with this experience. It’s actually quite common.
I like life these days. Years of Hakomi and RCS have given me a new hold on life. They’ve given me a solid base upon which to venture out into the uncertainties of life. A wholeness that I’d wanted for a long time. A place to stand and take up space in this world. I don’t regret the past so much. No longer have to shut the door on it. Rather than being tossed about by the sometimes heavy surf of life, I’ve learned to play in the waves. I’ve accessed a less fragmented and expansive self that I manifest many/most days. I know joy in a new way.
In the darkness this morning I became aware of that old visitor worry. The familiar tightening of chest. The disquiet of a quickly beating heart catching in my throat. Sure signs of a fragmented mind on a worry run. Sure signs that I think I’m alone and on my own in this life. Slowly a grin spread across my face. “Hey old friends I know you. And thanks.” Thanks for waking me up. Thanks for inviting me home.
So here is a hats off to an interesting cocktail of RCS and a more fully resourced self, mixed with a certainty that suffering and the Dark Night doesn’t have to be about the world sucking or about me being inadequate. It can simply be a wakeup call. It can be about being invited to a bigger more expansive self and a bigger banquet table of life. An invitation to a confidence and curiosity I’ve been looking for all along.
And a certainty, that even when I feel like I’m walking through the Valley of the Shadow, an assured and confident me is always available. Right here, right now. I simply have to remember to wake up from the bad dream.
