The Wound and The Light

I said: what about my eyes?
He said: Keep them on the road.

I said: What about my passion?
He said: Keep it burning.

I said: What about my heart?
He said: Tell me what you hold inside it?

I said: Pain and sorrow.
He said: Stay with it. The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

―Rumi

I did not grow up with organized religion. But through my life’s adversity, the door to spirituality has opened.

By that, I mean I’ve discovered a deeper sense of meaning—a profound connection to something larger than myself.

Something invisible that that can’t be made sense of. That can’t be known in the way that 2+2=4.

Yet I’m more certain of it. 

The price of admission to this certainty was the profound grief that I experienced when my son began to have seizures as a baby. 

When the world stopped making sense. When my ego’s illusion of control was shattered. 

When the pain brought me to my knees, and I surrendered to my helplessness in the face of life’s mysteries. It’s an ongoing process of discovery that started then and will continue until my last breath.

We all suffer. We are all invited to this place of understanding. It’s usually not until the second half of life, if ever, where we accept.

Carl Jung says ““Life really begins at 40, everything before that is just research.”  

Our egos block the pathway to the enlargement of our soul. Our culture offers endless distractions to escape and avoid the suffering we endure both consciously and subconsciously. 

James Hollis writes “The task for each of us will be found in an increasing capacity to bear our lives without diversion and to suffer the soul’s distress until we are led where it wishes to to take us”

Suffering is inevitable. Growth is not. 

Hollis continues…“It is far easier to walk in shoes too small for us than to step into the largeness that the soul expects and demands” 

It’s often the moments of acute trauma—the rock-bottom events—that propel us in a new direction.

They help us overcome the fierce resistance to the realization that the things we’re often chasing are meaningless; sensation, power, comfort, control.

They can give us the courage to pry off the tightly sealed lids and explore our psyches to see what boogey-men we’ve been running from, far outside of our conscious awareness. 

Author Miriam Greenspan says “The alchemy of the dark emotions most often takes place in life’s valley’s…dark nights of the soul when inordinate pain, like a swollen river, breaks through the dam we've erected around our hearts and floods us with energy that unexpectedly guides us to a new life”

Constantly chasing life’s peaks keeps us moving—but often at the cost of missing the lessons waiting for us in the valleys. How quickly we forget and leave them behind as we find new joy to cling to. 

For most of my life, I have resisted “bad" emotions. Sadness, despair, anger, fear… There has always been a bright side to look upon, why would anyone choose to spend time dwelling on what’s in the dark?

No longer.

I’ve experienced the transformative power of vulnerability. I understand how much depth exists beyond the surface of the ego’s world. There is no bottom to it. And I know that every invitation to explore can be welcomed, no matter how painful. 

I shared this sentiment with my dear friends this week who have suffered the unimaginable. January marked the one year passing of their beautiful three year old son, Archie.

Archie’s mom writes achingly beautiful notes on her grief, often accompanied by videos of him in all his toddler glory. She posted earlier this week and I resisted watching at first.

But I hit play.  It was early in the morning, while my house was still quiet and the world was still dark. And I smiled as I watched and tears streamed down my face. 

I opened up, allowed the emotion in and sat with it. Then I looked out the window and saw the eastern sky burst into light as the sun made its grand entrance onto the stage of a new day. 

Seeing the splendor of those brilliant colors illuminating the gentle cloud cover filled me with a deep sense of awe, peace and a felt presence of their little boy.

And in that moment, I felt a profound oneness. You might call it love, but that word barely captures the depth of it.

Because we can’t know it or express it through words. It can only be felt. Experienced. It has to be trusted.

And in our darkest hours, it provides little to no consolation. 

I can never know the depth of Archie’s parents' despair and never would I offer this as a balm for their wounds. Their experience sits at the extreme end of the spectrum of suffering we can be asked to endure in this life. 

I offer these thoughts with the deepest of reverence for this process of awakening. I hold no judgment for those that find the call impossible to heed. We are all on our own journeys. 

Our deepest wounds never fully heal. Their scars always remain visible on the surface. 

But they can serve as our reminder of how much exists below that surface. That from the ashes of destruction of a known way of being, we can be reborn into a new and richer way of experiencing life.

One that helps steel us against the onslaught of modern life’s anxieties, uncertainties, cruelties and pain. 

That reminds us we are part of a much bigger story unfolding beyond our conscious awareness. That helps us step into compassion.

When the world around us brings us to our knees, the world within is where we find our wings. 

-Coach Kris

PS. In writing this, I was inspired by pearls of wisdom from these sources. I also carry the poem below close to my heart. Like all great poetry, it distills the essence of so many words into a beautiful prose.

Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up by James Hollis (Book)

Healing through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of grief, fear and despair (Book)

Sahill Bloom on Rich Roll: The Five Types ofWealth (Podcast)

Allow

By Dana Faulds

There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado.
Dam a stream and it will create a new channel.
Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet.

Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground.
The only safety lies in letting it all in –
the wild and the weak –
fear, fantasies, failures, and success.

When loss rips off the doors of the heart
or sadness veils your vision with despair,
practice becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your known way of being,
the whole world is revealed to your new eyes.