It’s Scary To Realise You Own Your Life (And Light) | Just Be You | Amber Hawken | Mindfulness Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Why are we so afraid the yummy parts of life, the yummy parts of ourselves, the light?

Why is it so easy to find our darkness and focus on it?  Why does that darkness haunt us until we feel so utterly destitute within ourselves that we shut down and resort to the conclusion of I am just not X enough? Which is a form of auditory abuse, similar to, “99 bottles of beer on the wall” on repeat, or even worse, no bottles of beer on the wall, at all!!!

I’ll tell you why. Because when you own your light, when you are brave enough to dive so deep into your soul that fear becomes some kind of withering weed on the edge of a life you used to be restricted by, you realise that there are a million worlds inside the centre of your being. In that space, you cannot blame a single soul on this planet for your pain. You realise that you have to let go of all the anger and sadness and blame and feel every vibration and frequency of uncomfortableness (yeh, I made that word up) that you have ever avoided just so that you can see it really wasn’t so bad after all. And then you can pull yourself out of those depths and place your feet on the ground and realise:

Fuck, I am in charge.

It feels powerful and scary because now you are responsible.

It is a very fucking beautiful thing to realise that you own your life.

Its okay to be cautious of darkness, as long as you know that the light potential inside of you is what you are resisting everytime you pull back from pain.

Light gets in when we crack; it’s just that most of us are so afraid to let things fall apart.

Instead, we get angry.

Anger is the armour of sadness, and sadness is actually attempting to chaperone us into our hearts. If only we gave it a few moments of our attention, love, and presence. The most wondrous things in our world are felt and not seen, including all shades of emotions. Yes, even sadness. Especially fear.

Have you ever tried to be with it for a few moments? Have you ever inhaled into it and felt it sitting in your body? Fear, pain, anger and sadness will physically restrain and paralyse you when you resist it. I promise you this though, if you close your eyes and bring all your attention to the centre of it in your body, breathe, open your shoulders, relax your neck, and trust yourself to navigate through, then the restrictive hold that resistance creates will shift and melt away. Underneath, you will find your sanctuary. You will find you, a home, a safe place that never leaves you. When we leave this sanctuary, afraid to feel: fear will dominate our mind, emotions, and actions.

When it comes to fear, the best way out is always to run away. Kidding, it’s THROUGH. We can fuck around in anxiety, depression, obsession, and analysis under the false pretences that it will, in fact, fix our fear, despite knowing that it won’t (but it feels like we are doing something because we are thinking about it), or we could walk toward it. Fear is like a rearview mirror – reflections are bigger than actual size. To move into fear, we need to follow the green EXIT sign, only this one is a light that’s alive deep within us.

The better we get at leaning into fear, the sooner we enter that sanctuary and light will shine through that darkness.

If we don’t want fear to run us, if we want to stop sprinting away from fear like husbands avoiding boxing day sales, we must cultivate our safe zone: a home, a humble, graceful sanction within, on a mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual level.

Step one is mindfulness – which is literally to observe your mind and its noise. Every now and again take a moment to see what it’s saying. When you sit still, its endless chatter of bullshit will become excruciatingly prevalent, and you will hear yourself mumble the same echo of every other person who has just tried being still for the first 100 times, “My mind is so busy, it just won’t stop.”  That’s normal.

The second is feeling – remember that in order to get out, you must go through. Allow space, don’t wish it away (whatever emotion it may be, even the sick feelings of jealousy, grief, or depression). There is a BIG difference between feeling with conscious presence and wallowing. Wallowing will build on the emotion rather than dissipate it. It will feed off the mind and proliferates the emotions. Feeling – is just that – nothing going on in your head. Complete presence in the physical and energetic movement of the emotions.

Step three is the physical – movement and breath. It seems simple. But breath allows for light. Why the fuck do you think yoga is everything? It forces us to focus our breath. Think surrender. Think shift and release. It’s a vehicle to let more light in.

When all else fails, breathe!!! – It’s the Evenstar for earthlings (for all my Lord of The Rings Fans)

“May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.”

Light is what you are, it’s where you came from, and if you tap into it, you’ll find courage and wisdom that will take you from where you are now to the next step. Even if it is one millimetre at a time.

Fear is just fear. Light is you.

The trials and tribulations to get from one to another are called life. It’s an adventure, our evolution, and the only fucking reason we are here. So have fun with it and of course,

Own it, baby.

Love,