The Darkness Within Us and the Light That Heals

In my book Composting the Ego, I talk about one of the ways darkness is created and how strange it is that we often walk around inside of it as though it has nothing to do with us.

We look at the world and see violence, hatred, greed, cruelty, fear, trauma, and division, and it can feel as though darkness is something external that has descended upon humanity. But I don’t believe it is that simple. Darkness is not entirely outside of us. It is created, reinforced, and carried through collective consciousness.

That does not mean every person is individually responsible for every terrible thing that happens. It does not mean we should blame ourselves for the suffering of the world. But it does mean that all of us participate in the collective energy of humanity in some way.

Every time pain goes unhealed and becomes cruelty, every time fear becomes control, every time shame gets projected onto someone else, every time trauma is passed from one generation to the next, something is added to the atmosphere we all live within.

Then we walk around inside that atmosphere wondering who created it. 
We did. Collectively. And that is actually hopeful, because if humanity can contribute to darkness, humanity can also contribute to light.

This is how I often imagine ascension. I picture one light turning on in one person. Then another. Then another. Someone begins healing the trauma they were given. Someone decides not to repeat the patterns they inherited. Someone learns to respond instead of react. Someone chooses compassion instead of retaliation. Someone finally stops hating themselves. Someone deconstructs religion and awakens to the light within. 

Another light comes on.
Then another.
Then another.

Eventually, what was once dark begins to look different because enough people are carrying a different frequency into the world. That, to me, is ascension.

It is not about escaping Earth. It is not about pretending terrible things are not happening. It is about changing the consciousness through which we experience and participate in this world. The more I think about darkness, the more I believe that many of the “demons” we are fighting are not outside of us at all. They live in the places inside of us that are still wounded.

They are our trauma, our fear, our shame, our anger, our insecurity, our resentment, and the triggers that keep pulling us back into old cycles. They are the parts of us that react before we have the chance to consciously choose how we want to respond.

And when we fight those parts of ourselves, we usually do not heal them. We just create another war inside ourselves. The ego does not heal through punishment. Trauma does not heal through shame. Fear does not heal because we tell ourselves we should not be afraid.

Only love heals.

So much of the spiritual path has been framed as a battle against the ego, but I no longer see the ego as something that needs to be destroyed. Much of what we call ego is protection. It is the part of us that learned how to survive what we had not yet learned how to process.

When we begin to approach ourselves with curiosity instead of judgment, something changes. We begin asking why a reaction is there instead of condemning ourselves for having it. We begin noticing the wound underneath the behavior. We begin giving ourselves the love, safety, compassion, and understanding we may not have received when that wound was created.

That is where healing begins.
Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and I think we often rush past the last two words.
As yourself.

We are told to love other people, forgive other people, serve other people, and show compassion to other people. But if you have never learned how to love yourself, it becomes very difficult to consistently offer love from a healthy place. 
When you begin loving yourself, the way you move through the world changes.

You become less likely to shame someone else because you are no longer living in constant shame yourself. You become less reactive because you are learning how to sit with your own pain. You stop needing other people to validate your worth because you have begun recognizing it within yourself.

And another light turns on.

This is how I believe collective consciousness changes. Not because one person comes along and saves everyone, but because individual people begin becoming conscious of what they are carrying.

They heal what they can.
They stop passing certain wounds forward.
They begin choosing love more often.

Darkness is not overcome by creating more darkness in an attempt to destroy it. It is transformed when we stop feeding it. When fear is met with awareness, when trauma is met with healing, when shame is met with compassion, and when unconscious reaction becomes conscious response, something shifts.

Light does not have to fight darkness. It simply has to come on.

And maybe that is what ascension really asks of us. Turn on your light. Heal what is yours to heal. Love the parts of yourself that are still hurting. Then carry that love into the way you see and treat the people around you.

One person at a time, one relationship at a time, one light at a time, the frequency of the world begins to change.