Positive cannot exist without negative.
On last Friday’s Inspiration Nation Community Happy Hour, we discussed how you must experience struggle to know victory. You have to know pain to know joy. Negativity and positivity complement each other.
We then discussed the practice of giving comfort to our challenges, pain or problems. This is incredibly transformative and allows us not to run from our problems or just cover them up with positivity. Rather, in meditation or quiet contemplation, you envision holding, caring for and soothing your pain.
Whether it is:
financial,
relationships,
work challenges,
physical pain,
mental health,
negative self-criticism.
Whatever you struggle with, call it out!
Say what it is. Do not just bury it down below, run from it and let it plague you anymore. Love it, hold it, care for it. Envision holding your pain in your arms and caring for it like a newborn baby.
Say, “I see you struggle or pain or problems and I love you. I have held you close and now I must let you go.” Hold that darkness near to you in your arms, shed a tear over it and then let it go. It is time to let that pain, that struggle or that challenge go. When you call it out and you are honest that you don’t want to hurt or struggle anymore, you can let it go.
Carl Jung, a famous Swiss psychologist, said “what you resist not only persists, but will grow in size.” Or shortened, “what you resist, persists.” We fight against these things that plague us, we dwell on them, we play them over and over in our mind daily and they become a part of our thought patterns. They grow and grow as we resist them.
Rather than letting the struggle continue, accept it, love it and send it on its way. Say, “Oh struggle of mine, you have been a part of my life for far too long. I have given you a place to dwell, but it is time for you to move on. I have given you a place to grow, but now you must go.”
This acceptance allows you to move on as well. It allows you to create new space where that pain once was. You are clearing out the mental clutter you created by allowing that pain to grow within your mind for far too long. We create repeated thought patterns and then act them out in our lives. But those are just mental patterns. That is not you and it does not have to be your life. You get to choose what you think and who you are. You get to choose your actions. Your thoughts become your actions. So make room for new thoughts. Become the observer of those negative thought patterns. They are your thoughts and you can choose them.
In the beautiful words of Ram Dass in the song Sit Around the Fire, “Let the judgements and opinions of the mind be judgements and opinions of the mind. And you exist beyond that.” It is time for you to see that you are the observer of your thoughts, not the servant to them. You exist beyond your thoughts. You are an eternal part of this expansive universe. You can create your own thoughts.
Be Grateful for the Struggle
And as you create your own new positive thoughts of the life you deserve, the life of your dreams, be grateful for those challenges. For me the struggle has been financial for way too long. I have repeated patterns of debt, negative balances and scarcity. Some of this is due to the financial strain of having a large family with 7 kids. Some of this is living beyond our means. But most if it is succumbing to negative thought patterns and allowing the financial struggle to continue.
Running a small business is tough and in an ever-changing clean energy industry, it is very tough. But I often made poor decisions, played scarcity over and over in my mind and got myself into debt, when I could have made other decisions. And so, I have held that struggle close to me. I have held it in my arms, loved it and wished it well. It no longer serves me and I am allowing it to go. Now, abundance and financial responsibility are taking the place of scarcity and debt.
Not only do we wish the pain and struggle well and send it on its way, we also must be grateful to God, Spirit, the Universal Source of all that is for all the challenges, for all the struggles, all the negativity. For without struggle, we cannot know victory.
The Tao Te Ching says,
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.
After the darkest of days, the sun emerges and light shines brightly. It is the Yin and the Yang of life. These opposites are a part of the nature of life. We need darkness of winter to grow in the light of spring. Or as Emory and Trevor Hall said it in the song Muddied, “Spring will come. With its long light and lessons of how we need some seasons of darkness in order to bloom.”
As we head from a long dark winter into the long light of spring, let’s let the period of darkness in our lives fade away into the past. Be grateful for the periods of darkness for that is how we know the light of joy and positivity.
As Dr. King said,
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that,"
You can’t have light without dark.
You can’t have up without down.
You can’t have victory without struggle.
Be grateful for all the struggles and pain you have endured. It is not essential to hold onto it. And going beyond letting it go, express complete gratitude for your struggles. After the Great Depression, the economy grew for years. After the COVID deep recession in 2020, the economy sky rocketed. When we go through challenging times, we rise up higher than before. During the challenging times, be grateful for all is unfolding as it is meant to. In the valleys of life, you are preparing to climb your next summit.
The other day I expressed such extraordinary gratitude for all the challenges that have come tome over the last 8 months, some of which I referenced in a previous article. I expressed gratitude, because I know that these current struggles and the past few months of compounding challenges will lead to the most extraordinary growth I have ever experienced.
Life goes in seasons and cycles and in that season of struggle grows our next big leap forward. Love the struggle, pain and challenges, because it makes you better. It allows you to grow more than when life is easy. Be grateful for the winter of life, because soon comes the spring, your time to bloom.
Negative and positive create energy.
When you connect a negative charge and a positive charge in a battery, you create power. When you bring the negativity from your life and combine it with positivity, you create power. Your power. Your pure unbridled power to live the life of your dreams. Take all that negativity, all that pain, all that struggle and combine it with your positive determination to live as your True Self, to live life on purpose and you will create boundless energy.
Close your eyes. See yourself, holding your pain, struggle or challenges in your arms and love them completely. Feel God’s grace, love and energy go through you, as you transform that negative struggle into pure light and love. Be grateful, for you are about to bloom.
