In January, shortly after the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, I wrote an article called “The Light is Born and then…” and in it we met the fear of darkness that lives within. Today, as we are moving quickly toward the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, may what you read be perhaps surprising, and hopefully enlightening and healing for you.
So many of us are afraid of the dark and don’t even know it. Yet…so very many of us are afraid of the light and also don’t have any idea we are. In the cold and dark of winter within and without, so many wish for the warmth and light of summer, never dreaming that deep down, beneath our awareness, we are actually afraid of the light, terrified of the light. Imagine! Believing you welcome the light, having no inkling you really fear it! Having no inkling you really run in the opposite direction! Let’s bring this unconscious occurrence into consciousness today…so we can be aware of it, so we can work with it, so we can heal it within ourselves.
As we go ‘round and ‘round the cycle of life – physically in the cycle of the seasons and metaphorically in our own journeys physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually – when we begin to approach the increasing heat and light of the summer, many of our personal fears begin to awaken, perhaps ones that weren’t even activated during the cold and dark of winter. Perhaps that we won’t be nestled away in what we experience as safety – our layers and layers of clothes, our stillness and even inactivity, our hopefully safe winter’s nest. Perhaps that we will be more visible in the long days filled with light and maybe our weaknesses will be more obvious.
But how many of us are aware that among the awakening fears is not only the fear of our weaknesses being revealed, but also the fear of our own beauty showing out into summer’s light? The fear of our beautiful essence showing? When the blossoms are full, the fear is of success, fulfillment, glowing, even shining. How could that be? I’ll show you.
Many of us are afraid of coming out of the small, submissive, hiding selves we live in for fear people will attack us, ridicule us, put us through hell when we do…just like those in our childhoods did many long years ago. And often we do face re-enactments of our original traumas when we dare to be who we truly are and not simply our protected, defended, coping self. But we have a choice and a chance to utilize any reenactments for further, deeper healing not only of the reenactments, but also of the memories, the feelings, and especially the fears.
Too often, we get to the spring of our cycle of life and turn back to the darkness…knowing – although a buried, unconscious knowing – that in order to make passage through the summer of life, we are going to need to face the many facets of power, of our coming into our power. We are going to need to face the ways in which people long ago hurt, wounded, perhaps even traumatized us, with their misuse and abuse of power. And we are going to need to face the ways in which we already have and will certainly be tempted to misuse and abuse our own power.
Perhaps someone yelled at you when you were a little tyke singing with joy at the top of your lungs. Perhaps someone tripped you when you danced around the room like a little butterfly. Maybe someone ridiculed you when you learned how to talk. Or maybe someone used you sexually when you were too young to even know what your sexuality was, taking advantage of your trust and your love. And now all of these ways of being and ways of being you are terrifying to you now…and more!
And perhaps unconsciously, to keep your own feelings and memories at bay, you do or would do the same kinds of things to others today. In order to heal and reclaim who we truly are and perhaps once were, we have to go through the time of heat and light and meet these memories, these feelings, these defenses, and heal them. There is no true going around all of this to who we are at essence. The heat and light of summertime is a doorway back to us. It is the doorway to and through the fire of transformation. And the only way back to us is through that doorway.
So the light of this time of year is a doorway. There is no way around this doorway if we are going to come to who we truly are…the full blossoming of us! The full living of us. The full utilizing of the fire of who we are! The full harnessing and directing of the fire of who we are. The full living of our selves!
We can try to lock this doorway. We can barricade this doorway. We can run away from this doorway. We can run in the other direction, deluding ourselves into believing we are running toward the doorway. Many do this. Like moths drawn to the light in the outside world, we reach for, grab at, even try to steal the light in the outer world…running as fast as we can away from the light in the inner world. It will never get us where we are called to go. We cannot become the light of who we are without going through this doorway consciously and purposefully for healing and birthing of ourselves.
This year as we approach the Summer Solstice, may we bring our unconscious fears of the light – especially the light within – out into our consciousness, so we can heal…for our own sakes and for the sake of our world. Will you join me?
© Copyright 2011 by Judith Barr, MS, LMHC. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org.
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