I could write an entire book on this matter, but I’ll just scratch the surface and deliver the following:
LOOKING BACK, I remember being at a point in life where 'one more bad word' could almost kill me. Like many people, I was aware that the news does the, “If it bleeds, it leads” thing, so that was just a tolerable illness of mass media and I tried to shrug it off. But when I was grief-stricken, life on life’s terms became nearly untenable, emotionally. I got so sick of watching the news, but the sick feeling was drawing to a head.
I vividly recall sitting with adolescents at my work in Hazelden Center for Youth & Families (HCYF) in Plymouth, Minnesota. It was during my Dark Night of the Soul. As we watched an unremarkable, typical news report, I was inwardly capitulating. Someone’s painful events were reported, and, I just wanted to check-out of this fucking place we call earth.
The news I heard was so sad, but doubly so because of my Trial by Fire raging through my essence; it was killing me to see how humans can treat each other. It reminds me of early recovery, where for the first time in a long time, I had to feel EVERYTHING, and I didn’t have a drink or a drug to hide behind. Indeed, The Dark Night was enveloping my entirety. I felt like I didn’t belong here, like, this is NO place for me. I begged God to kill me because I knew I couldn’t kill myself. I doubt I’m not alone with this feeling. I wondered why sensitive souls were still here. How is it that we survive and why?
Segue: Do you remember the saying, “Some men are too gentle to live among wolves?” Maybe it was a book, I no longer recall, but I distinctly remember seeing those words on a MADD Quilt. If you have never seen a ‘MADD Quilt’ it’s an array of Squares or Panels. Victims create a quilt memorializing their collective loved ones. That is, they are all woven together and displayed as one quilt and displayed at events. Many Panels I remember clearly, as they are so impactful. It’s like visiting a cemetery, except it’s where people can afford to have pictures, quotes, poetry and have personal artifacts sewn together in memorial. Tombstones are expensive.
In MADD one particular woman, a wife, lost her husband to a drunk driver, and on her quilt’s dedication, his photo was sewn on with those words attending about his being ‘too gentle to live among wolves.’ That Panel always stayed within my heart’s memory.
I apologize now if you’ve already heard my story about the Dark Night, but I felt it’s time to unpack some of the lessons that came from it and how/why I survived it. Depending on where I’m speaking, I address these reasons, but rarely in any real detail.
Back to HCYF. My Dark Night of the Soul lasted 3 1/2 years. I assure you in no uncertain terms, I didn’t want to ‘be here’ anymore. The first 2 1/2 years of the Dark Night, I wanted to die every day, ALL day. The last year was a lot better. I only wanted to die a few times a day.
Again, how is it that I or we survive these difficult days and nights…and WHY? Why even try? Because life forces a journey of ultimate CHOICE and the lessons earned therefrom. That seems a contradiction, yes, but truth without paradox doesn’t strip our souls down to the bare metal.
OK, let’s talk BARE METAL, AKA, the Reasons I Didn’t Kill Myself. Why? Because it might give insight as to why others struggling might find purpose:
Reason #1 was Step 3. On August 19th, 1990 at 3:30 a.m., I turned my will and my life over to God. That means that “my life’ didn’t belong to ‘me’ anymore. It still doesn’t belong to me anymore. To be clear, I couldn’t steal my life from God.
Reason #2. If I gave up, I couldn’t be here to help others who were struggling with what I was struggling with.
One of the lessons: Never let pain be your master. Pain can be a cruel taskmaster, one that mistakes love for the problem rather than the solution. We either serve pain, or it serves us. Teachers come in many forms, they arrive at any time and intrude upon our dimensional awareness until it’s evolved within us a true surrender. Until we get the Message from the lesson, we’re doomed to repeat the lesson.
Plants grow toward the sunlight, but if the light streams through a small window perpendicular to the plant, don't be surprised if it grows toward the light. Taken from the basement window, I bring the plants of life from their respective basements, set them in a natural setting, and protect them until they grow upward and look like the rest of us who were lucky enough to not be imprisoned in a basement somewhere. We forget who we are when we get distracted.