Our wounded self is our dark, shadow side. Not because it is bad, but because it is cut off from the light of God. It lives in the darkness of fear and in the heaviness of false beliefs instead of in the light of love and truth. Moving toward “enlightenment” is moving into the light of truth from our spiritual guidance. When we heal our fears and false beliefs, our energy lightens. We may even hear from others, “You seem so much lighter!”
Doorways to Darkness
Just as the light of God enters our hearts when we choose to open to love, the darkness enters when we choose to close our hearts and act from anger, fear, shame, judgment or hurt. This is what happened in The Return of the Jedi, the last of the original Star Wars series. In this movie, the emperor, the epitome of darkness, tries to get Luke to join the dark side. He knows that if he can get Luke angry or frightened enough, he will want to kill his father, Darth Vader. The emporor would then own Luke, just as he had owned Luke’s father. The emperor knows that anger and fear are the doorways to darkness.
Our anger, fear, shame, judgment and hurt are the cracks in our energy field through which the darkness enters.
The darkness can also enter when we cloud our energy with drugs, alcohol, nicotine or sugar. Do you recall the trial in San Francisco that employed the infamous “Twinkie defense”? About twenty years ago, the mayor and a city supervisor were shot down inside City Hall and their killer got a short sentence because of his “diminished capacity” due to having eaten a diet of only junk food.
In one of my dialogues with my spiritual guidance, she challenged me about darkness. She said, “Margaret, you have worked for many years to be physically healthy. Not only that, you strive to be immune to illness. Likewise, for many years you have sought to become a more loving person. Now your task is to become immune to darkness.” I was blown away. Becoming immune to darkness means never acting out of my wounded self’s feelings of fear, anger, shame, judgment or hurt but always moving into an intent to learn about these feelings as soon as they come up. I can tell you, it’s quite a challenge! I don’t know if I will ever accomplish this, but it certainly is a worthy goal!
