Healing (28) Healing negativity

There is a grey cloud with me always. It hovers just out of sight. It does not lie within me, but outside of me. It is Other. It is a brooding, silent presence of mystery, it is sadness and desolation. In it there is no hope, no joy. All my life I have tried to explain the cloud that haunts me by pretending it is part of me. I have walked a way of inner emptiness. I have quelled all desire and yearning. I have used all my inner strength for this sacrifice. I have surrendered all these things and handed over my life. I have become nothing, without feeling, without desire. I am grey. I have become the cloud.

Pride, is it said, is the father of all sin. I would put it differently: it is the father of all negativity. Pride is the deliberate concealment of shame by denial. This careful concealment is a fearful, rigid, negative and deadening place. Sometimes negativity is mistaken for something other than pride, but if we take a close look we will find pride there.

Fearful
If you deny feeling shame then you are blinding yourself to the consequences of your actions. You may do this by pretending that the shameful thing you are doing (or not doing) isn't happening. Alternatively, you may pretend that the thing you are doing (or choosing not to do) is nothing to be ashamed of. Either way exposure is to be feared.

Rigid
The concealment of shame by denial imposes a kind of paralysis. By adopting "standards" as artificial, rigid structures that must be maintained at all costs, it is possible to create a kind of "smoke screen" that conceals the shame beneath.

This rigidity, maintained by fear of being discovered, acts counter to change and personal progression. It soaks up personal power to the point where you are hemmed in by "musts" and "shoulds". Every path towards fulfillment is blocked by some rigid structure that you have created for yourself.

Negative
If you are always trying to anticipate circumstances where you may be exposed so that you can take avoiding action, that takes up a whole lot of energy.!The first casualty in this war against imagined shadows is trust. Negativity is a deliberate choice. Given the chance to be positive about other people or the world, you probably refuse. Terrible things may happen if you are open, so its best to say nothing.

Apathetic
This negative place is lifeless and static. It creates a state of being "stuck”, but remember: your resistance to change has a very important meaning. This choice to remain helpless and out of control is created in your imagination. It is a sad, lonely and lifeless place with no escape.  If you were once trapped in the womb with a dead presence that did not respond or change, then negativity is your way of life. You feel isolated and unseen. In your mind and heart there is a kind of hard, cold "spiritual deadness" that you are deeply ashamed of.

Truth
The most powerful healing essence you can possibly call upon now is truth. The truth is always positive. It heals negativity very fast indeed. If you find it hard to hear the truth about yourself, then think again: are you trying to resist the chance of healing your state of negativity, just to keep alive a lost memory of something lifeless from long ago?

Activity
Do something active towards your own healing. Anything will do. Own up; stand up and tell the truth. Once you are no longer afraid to tell the truth, you will feel your power return. Powerful shame is a great virtue. It is a bottomless hole in your life into which you can pour away all your self-hate.  Notice you have constantly broken rules of your own making in order to give yourself something to be ashamed of, and then fear being exposed. You have been giving away your power and letting other people run your life for you.

Reformation
Take charge today and begin a process of personal reformation. You have the power to destroy the inner world that you have created. If you harness the power of truth you could change how you live and be a force for good in the world.

Positive energy
Gradually, day by day, you can learn to leave that sense of negativity and lifelessness far behind in the womb where it belongs. You have agency - you are responsible for the impression you make on the world. You have been paralysed by despair and living in an imagined world where you are lifeless and unchanging. That lifeless and unchanging person is not you, or even part of you: it is another being entirely.

Today is the day to make a start. Open that treasure chest and reclaim your power. There is no better time.