Embracing the Darkness. Tools to Help You Along the Way

Embracing the Darkness. Tools to Help You Along the Way

Guest post by Kat Tepelyan

As I coach Level 1 of School of the Modern Mystic and notice the forum conversations hit more personal and often painful notes, I reflect back on my own process and want to share some observations and skills, as they may be helpful.

Evolving, which is what I think this process is – the process many call awakening, etc. – is, at its core, a process of surrendering, a rather unnatural concept to the mind, which likens the experience of surrender to death.

This is why so many stop the process. The temporary discomfort can be very intense, and our first reaction is to run.

Surrendering to what?

Surrender starts with us surrendering to the moment, wherever we are and whatever we’re doing. Sometimes that moment is painful, sometimes joyous, sometimes boring, exhausted, angry, and everything in between.

When we surrender to these things – as crazy and ugly as some of them may seem – we’re simply saying: “I’m willing to look at this and remain open to whatever shows up as a result.”

If, say, you catch yourself becoming annoyed at someone doing something absurd, like my favorite: a tourist standing in the middle of Times Square gawking at signs during rush hour as you try to pass, you have options. I would often imagine pushing these folks off the sidewalk and yelling, “Welcome to New York! Keep walking!”

Then I’d get upset with myself and stay in the upset, missing the whole point.

Now if we don’t judge the emotion, we have an opportunity to watch it and to bring something else in, like laughter, “Look at their outfits”, or love, “They’ve never seen anything like this.”

Just the other day, I was stuck behind two tourist groups with zero English. They were incapable of using the subway ticket machine, just standing, poking at all the wrong buttons, helpless. I got annoyed. No lie. I wanted to get home and didn’t want to wait for 20 minutes to refill my card. I watched my annoyance, allowed it to subside and then approached them and offered to help purchase their Metro Cards. I was on my way home in no time. They were grateful; I felt good. Win win.

There is also a deeper reason for learning surrender.

As surrender becomes our normal response and openings to greater things become available, the practice trains us for the greatest surrender short of our physical deaths – the surrender of aligning and living with our soul: intuitively, joyfully, freely.

We don’t just get a passport to this experience; it is earned by applying surrender in every moment of our lives.

Dealing with the big stuff

When we begin to work with the Chakras to balance and align them, as this is the basis of the work, we begin to clean many painful and unnecessary subconscious beliefs lodged in our energy fields and often experience deep grief for periods of time. This happens, I’ve found, for several reasons:

  1. We re-experience certain painful memories
  2. We feel we are losing control, the mind filling us with doubt, fear and anxiety

Both of these experiences, often going hand in hand, can effectively thwart our development, as we observe a large, impenetrable wall called: “THIS HURTS!” or “I’m a bad person” and discontinue the work for fear of endless pain.

1. Re-experiencing painful memories

As you’ve probably heard Belinda mention, healing with the White Light is different to many modalities in that it does not require you to be aware of the majority of things being cleaned out. It doesn’t require psychiatric visitations, long conversations or conscious pain processing. But sometimes we are shown things that need to be looked at because we need to learn some valuable lessons from the situation.

Say, you were beaten as a child, and that brings up much pain in your experience. This memory, if surfaced, needs to be examined and compassion applied to all parties.

Now this is a slightly more advanced version of awareness, which does not condone the attack, but rather accepts it having happened and forgives the perpetrator (as well as the victim for “allowing” it to happen, as victims often blame themselves.)

Forgiveness, a powerful and necessary tool, stems from the realization that when we hurt others, we hurt ourselves ten-fold. A contract killer, for example, not only enters all situations analyzing the best way to hurt the target but also lives with endless paranoia and rage.

Understanding this, we grow capable of forgiveness, but if we are asked to bring compassion to the situation too soon, may flare up with: “I don’t want to forgive them!” And we don’t have to, not until we’re capable of it.

We will simply return to the memory until we have the emotional strength to bring compassion with us to that dark place.

2. Feelings of losing control and experiencing doubt, fear and anxiety

The reason we go through these, and you, I am sure, are probably well versed in this yourselves, is that experiencing fear, anxiety and the like, is simply us experiencing the ego’s majestic palette of sabotage. After all, its sole purpose is to remain the unquestioned king of our lives, and surrender is not on its agenda.

Knowing us intimately, it presses all the right buttons and makes the very idea of healing a scary, insurmountable gorge.

This is how it works and survives.

We forget, however, that we have power in all situations and that the answer lies in surrender.

Using the Tools

We often think (I certainly have) that embarking on this life-changing journey is blessed by the universe, and therefore should be easy. “I’m healing, and thus I help others. Why, then, do I feel like garbage?” Understanding the ego here comes in handy, as well as having and using the appropriate tools to deal with the oncoming heaviness.

I do the methods outlined in Belinda’s work: I practice the Chakra meditation, lie down for the White Light and do the White Light Healing Intensives regularly. I do these things because in my years of seeking methods that work, this is the only thing that has created sustained change in my life.

It’s especially important for me to have tools that work because tools that don’t work get weeded out quickly. I live in New York, and living here or in any other congested city is very intense. People become more aggressive and on edge, facing difficulty doing the simplest things because it’s just hard to get from point A to point B. Being able to take 3 days off without having to leave town while in the White Light Healing Intensive has proven to be incredibly helpful. It is a tool that works in this overwhelming environment.

During the intensives, I’ve relived many painful episodes from my personal story. I have cried, spent the days in bed, stopped eating (only to eat everything in the fridge the following day), the only thing really helping to bring finality and closure to these difficult experiences being surrender. It helps to be embraced in the blanket of love and healing that the White Light is.

Reusable Energy

Evolving, waking up, becoming enlightened, whatever you want to call it, is not a process of ignoring, of picking and choosing what you want to see in yourself. It is not about bold proclamations of your powers or arrogantly stomping your agenda to the “less evolved.” It is simply an often messy process of transforming stuck energy into useful, usable potential energy.

Consider that when you discover a pocket of hate towards someone or something, that the energy expended in hating is no longer accessible to you in your creative endeavors. You can not use that potential energy in its current state to do anything but hate. So how do you gain access to that energy? By accepting your hate, surrendering to it, and transforming it by bringing compassion and understanding.

Simple. 🙂

Yet this transformation can only happen when we stop fearing those cobwebbed places in the recesses of our minds and visit with them, taking the time to process and forgive.

I wish you luck on your journey and offer you this: everyone who’s woken up, evolved, or become enlightened has had to go through this very same process.

Facebook Twitter Google+ Pinterest
8
Comments
Circles
Get your free Chakra Kit and Belinda's Spiritual Support to create a life of magic.

Like this?
Subscribe
For more!

Get your free Chakra Kit
Weekly White Light
Healings and tips to
Create a life of magic.

Comments

  1.  | 

    Oh Kat, thanks so much for this post! I have been feeling lots of stuff coming up- especially- as you so perfectly described them “pockets of hate”. Thank you SOOOO much for your point to ponder- “Consider that when you discover a pocket of hate towards someone or something, that the energy expended in hating is no longer accessible to you in your creative endeavors.”
    That was extremely helpful in making it easier to detach myself… or should i say detach from my ego and be able to choose without emotion whether i want to spend my energy hating or creating something for my etsy shop??!! LOL
    I am really enjoying my time here with you and Belinda and all my fellow “Chakra cleaners”!!
    I can’t wait to be balanced, but i am also enjoying the process and don’t want it to end!
    Sparkly Hugs,
    Tobi


    • Kat Tepelyan
       | 
       | 

      You’re so welcome Tobi, and thank you for doing the work!

      You should know that this process doesn’t actually ever end. 🙂 It just goes on and on at higher decibels of experience and learning. I love this aspect of the work: there is always more to learn.

      You’re doing very well.
      Much love,
      Kat


  2. Pam
     | 
     | 

    Thank you Kat, very inspiring and has given me direction in just this one blog. I appreciate you and feel your soothing energy…. Thank you so much xxx


  3. Kathleen
     | 
     | 

    This is a wonderfully insightful post Kat. Your explanation of surrender and “I’m willing to look at this and remain open to whatever shows up as a result” was particularly helpful. So simple, but so easy to forget when most needed. And to also be willing to look at our joy-filled moments and (big one for me) compliments that an under energised chakra tends to deflect or not hear properly.
    Many, many thanks to you and Belinda. I’m loving the course.
    Kathleen


  4.  | 

    Thank you Kat, I love your post and it reached me at a point where I could use your insights, feeling a little stuck today. I especially found your description of the reusable energy very helpful.

    Love & Light to you,
    Petra


  5.  | 

    Thank you for a truly illuminating post. The darkness is as equal as the light guiding us home showing us the way inside ourselves. There is such beauty and gratitude held in these moments of honesty and surrender. It is truly a blessing to be here experiencing every moment and diving deeper into oneness.

    Thank you x


  6. Kat Tepelyan
     | 
     | 

    You’re all so welcome.

    Embracing and journeying into the darkness is so so important to our growth. We need not fear it.

    <3


  7.  | 

    After going over a few of the articles on your site, I truly like your
    way of writing a blog. I saved it to my bookmark webpage
    list and will be checking back in the near future.
    Please check out my web site too and let me know what
    you think.


Facebook Image
Bottom triangle

Latest blogs

I’m currently on a road trip heading south. It’s a road trip that I took some 23 years ago with my first lover. It’s brought back many memories. Much nostalgia….

In the midst of learning an important life lesson you can’t know what it is. You’re in the midst of it. You’re out at sea in the storm. You’re walking,…

Belinda Davidson

I have a migraine condition. I also have epilepsy. Often my migraines are so severe they turn into seizures; and after an epileptic seizure I’II often get a bad migraine….

A copy of Stillness Speaks sits on my bedside table. It’s been that way for many, many years. Usually, The Power of Now is there alongside it. But during a…

In the past months I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of elevation. How, despite everything that’s happening in the world right now, we can actively pursue elevating our…

When I sat down to write my blog for this week’s spiritual support, no words flowed. No topic came to mind. No inspiration surfaced. Everything going on in the world…

More latest blogs

Poetry is one of the places I go to find soul. I write it to figure out how I feel beyond my human feelings. And I read it to remind myself…


Don't feel you fit in anywhere?

I believe books show up when we need them. Not able to sleep one night several weeks back, I decided to take a bath. Brené Brown’s book Braving the Wilderness…


I'm up to shenanigans. Want in?

It was about 2 months ago that I watched an Instagram story for the first time. My best friend Lauren showed me how it worked. “See where a rainbow-coloured-thingy appears…


Novels That You Can't Put Down

I’m one of those kinds if given the choice between a Netflix series or a novel, I’II take the novel. Creating my own characters and worlds from the written word…


Telepathy - Reading People's Minds

It had been building up. I just wanted to go on my treadmill, sweat, pound, and get the creative juices swirling. But humidity was at an all time high, and…


Is the shimmer returning?

On the weekend I listened to an interview with Oprah and Alicia Keys. Oprah asked Alicia what her take on COVID-19 is; why she thinks this might be happening in…


Circle images

Elevate your life  with these resources!

Ready to do great things?

Let's get started!