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This week we’ve been posting thoughts on the power of story, of reframing the narrative of our lives in ways that empower us rather than limit us. I must admit that the previous two posts were lightweight compared to what you’re about to read – mostly because I wasn’t sure how to lead in to this – I wasn’t sure if people could hear it.
So often our resistance to reframing our past – often what is a sad and tragic past – is because we have come to identify with it. Our past, we believe, defines us. However, as you are about to see, I have reason to believe that nothing could be further from the truth.
My friend Mark is one of the happiest, upbeat, positive, giving, over-flowing-with-joy people I know. One day at lunch I asked him, “Mark, what’s the deal? You’re always so energetic, full of life, positive in outlook, is it real? Are you really this way all the time? And if so, what’s your secret?”
His answer was one I wasn’t expecting: His explanation one I will never forget.
Tim, I’m this way because I choose to be this way. The choice is ours, even in the most difficult of circumstances. And believe me, I know about difficult circumstances. You see, one evening when I was ten years old, I heard my mother and father arguing in the living room of our home. It was so loud and angry that it awoke me from my sleep. When you hear your parents argue and you’re a little kid it startles you to your core. So I got out of bed and quietly slipped down the hallway toward the living room to see what was going on. As I rounded the corner, I saw my father holding a shotgun, pointing it at my mother. In an instant it was as if my ears went numb, the explosion was unbearable, the site unfathomable. My mother lay on the floor, blood spattered on the wall, pooling on the carpet. I screamed out, horrified. My father turned, looked at me, put the gun to his chin and pulled the trigger.
In an instant, and in the most unimaginable way, my parents were gone. Even at ten I knew I had to shield my little brother and sister from this. I ran to their rooms, we climbed out the window and went to the neighbors so they could call for help.
Over time I came to realize that these things happen because people buy into the illusion that the darkness inside is greater than the light. And that’s a lie. It isn’t. It never can be – unless you’re deluded. And so I decided to spend the rest of my life taking to heart the lesson my parents never got – ‘God is love and God is light.’ Every morning I make the conscious decision to live in love and to be a vessel of that light. It’s a choice. It’s a choice so powerful that it can even overcome the greatest emotional scars that can be inflicted in this life. Any other story is a lie. Any other story is a great delusion.
His story rocked my world and his faith gave me a new anchor for life – especially the darkest parts. To this day it is the most powerful testimony I’ve ever heard and its truth has stood the test of time in my own journey. How often I’ve repeated his words for myself – especially when I’ve wanted to give up: “Tim, the darkness inside is NOT greater than the light. Embrace the light.”
The poet Hafiz wrote:
“I wish I could show you,
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The Astonishing Light
Of your own Being!”
Today and every day hereafter that is my prayer for you, for the world: May you see “The Astonishing Light of your own Being!”
13 comments to “Get a New Past (part 3)”
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Pain, open wounds and unresolved trauma are so very real. Life would be so much better without them. Ironically, statements like that hold the key to their power over us. If the pain would only stop, if the wound would only heal, if that damned had only not happened…life would be so much better.
In the years that followed a major catharsis involving my late father and ex-wife I came to understand that I had defined myself by my wounds. I prevented their healing by controlling them; by holding on to resentment and anger; by using them to define myself.
The catharsis was step one. Step two involved moving into the pain and embracing it. My mantra was “not over it, around it or under it but through it.”
I have a new past now.
Thanks Tim for sharing and allowing me to share. God’s Peace be with you always brother. -
Thanks guys for sharing, I to came from a broken home. My father when I was very young was a very angry man, he seemed to just be mad at the whole world and perhaps he had a right to be. You see both my parents are deaf, my dad has long since passed but my mother still is living. But in the old days the opportunities for people who were afflicted with some sort of disability were very limited and my father never was given much of an opportunity, but he allowed that to infect his whole being, he allowed others to create his future rather then create his own. My father always wanted to be a farmer, but was never given the chance. I don’t pretend to know what kind of farms there are in heaven but whatever they are my father no doubt has the one he always dreamed of, and one day I will be able to eat with him some of the crops he has planted since he has been there. I can’t wait!!
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“Today and every day hereafter that is my prayer for you, for the world: May you see “The Astonishing Light of your own Being!”
This should be in our thoughts and on our lips; our “go to” when confused or stumped in situations we have no answers.
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WOW! Yes! I can hear it and affirm it! This man’s story is gut-wrenching yet what an extraordinary response and testimony…. Choose to live fully and gratefully in the gift of the “present” rather, than experience or define the present through the pain (or horror) of the past! A few years back, my husband came home from work and told me of an encounter with another employee. She was bolting down the hallway one morning, obviously stressed and angry, and after she passed, she stopped, turned around and yelled at him: “Why is it that my life “s_cks” so much and your life looks so good?” He simply answered “Choices…..do you want to talk about it?” Now, he wasn’t being sarcastic or uncaring…he was being honest and compassionate. He’d faced hardships, illness, deep disappointment, and injustices just like everyone else.
Tim, it is so true what you wrote: “people buy into the illusion that the darkness inside is greater than the light”. For both of us, years of “thought programming” during childhood and early adulthood told us that life and people were going to “stick it to us”, so expect the worst, expect and prepare for “lack”, be fearful and cautious, embrace protectionism, and strive to fight through it, and survive! There’s not much joy in that. Eventually, we both asked the same question Dr. Phil often asks his guests: “How’s that workin’ for you?” One day you “wake up” and discover it just simply doesn’t make any sense! As your friend testified, we escaped the illusion, by choosing to embrace Love, embrace the Light!! We don’t ignore that hardship, suffering, or injustice will show up in our own lives or others’; yet we’ve come to recognize that Choosing Love = co-creating our present reality with, in and through our Creator. I’m reminded of these words from John 1, “In Him was life, and the Life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it”. The “darkness” of past pain can provide contrast and expose the illusion.—it shouldn’t be allowed to diminish our true identity or the joy of our present reality. I’m so thankful for your posts this week and the honest, insightful comments of others!!
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This is the best article of yours I’ve read. My dear wife needs to hear this. I shall copy it and give it to her. She still grieves (since 2001) for a sister lost to cancer. It has colored her life as dark as night. Thank you for posting this. I will link my blog to this one.
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YES!
Sheesh, what could I add to that… i see that every problem we have, from our fear of disease, to our fear of death, is rooted in the erroneous belief that darkness is a real threat to Light…!
Darkness is a no-thing … I cannot pick up a darkness. When the dawn breaks, darkness doesn’t fight back … it fades, it is absorbed, and even becomes the Light.
When I am aware of that which presents itself as darkness in my life, it is an announcement that Light is needed.
and who am I, and what is my purpose other than to be the Light of the World…!?!
Darkness has only the power that we give it, through our mind-embrace of it.
It is illegitimate … it doesn’t exist. We can face it, whatever it is, and stare down that “monster in the closet” until we SEE that it is merely a dust-bunny.
We need not give the dust-bunnies fangs…!
We can laugh at them, blow them away, and let the Light show us the real story …
(Ok, so we may need to dust more often … and that’s a good thing to know … minds can be renewed.)
Shalom, Dena
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Just realized that my comments could give the impression that I am not honoring the pain of others (& myself), for the effects that collective (& personal) darkness-beliefs have caused us.
I don’t want to do that, not even for a minute.
I see, and recognize, that there are times when the belief-in-darkness reaches such a crescendo that untold human suffering is a result. My husband has relatives who died in concentration camps … my grandfather was assassinated on the steps of the state capitol in Oregon … my own marriage was abysmal for 17 years, due to the lies that I believed (& my own children were devastatingly affected).
But at the core of each of those, from “having a bad day” to the threat of nuclear annihilation, there lurks a lie that is unquestioningly believed … and while the lie may take on the appearance of uniqueness, each lie boils down to a belief in separation … I see that everything we suffer comes down to believing that we are separated — from God, from each other.
I haven’t yet found a problem, a suffering, a conflict, that isn’t rooted in the belief of that insidious lie.
Simplistic, perhaps … but then so too is the solution — to know, really *know*, and thus experience, that we are all One… with God, with each other.
How we learn that is variable … it takes what it takes with each one … each path will be unique in its expression … and we’re to love one another while en route.
Just my thoughts … (I’m more passionate than adamant).
Shalom, Dena
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I just found your blog thanks to Dena Brehm. I have been so burdened lately about fear and how it limits us. I just returned from a trip to China where fear is everywhere; but we don’t have to go to a developing country to find it. It is so pervasive in our culture and so many choose to let it define them; thus, they react out of that fear and choose to limit themselves and others. Those of us that recognize the light within really need to unblock the flow and let that light shine. Thanks to you and your friend Mark for sharing your amazing stories!
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I watched a movie called ‘Warriors of Virtue’. Usually I’d flip past a ‘kung fu’ type of movie, but, the names of the warriors piqued my interest so I settled there.
The underlying story was about how our choices effect our outcome. The battle was between good and evil.
In one scene,the boy in the story picked up a jar that held an empty cocoon. The ‘kung fu cook’, his mentor, proceeded to tell a story. “While walking home one day I observed the cocoon on the ground. It caught my attention because it was moving and rolling around. I picked it up and saw that the moth inside was trying to come out. So, I ripped the cocoon open and the moth flew away. Suddenly it fell to the ground and died.” He concluded by saying “It is the struggle to make ourselves free that causes us to fly”.
In another scene the kung fu master told the little boy ‘Our lies blind our vision but the truth is still there”.
In yet another scene, someone else in the movie said,”The only hells in this world are in our hearts. That’s where all the battles must be fought”.
This movie, as you can see, blew me away. ( and I didn’t even see all of it!)
It just seemed to me that the truths in the movie fit well with the truths in Mark’s story. And, by the way, good did overcome evil. Or as Tim would say, “inconclusion”.. Which also, by the way, was outstanding
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Sorry, Tim for the “inconclusion” remark which was a Blog Post of Kevin Beck’s ‘Parousia’ for Oct.5th.
I guess I just gotta little kungfused!
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Something that I have come to realize in my own life is that, what I see ‘out there’ is what I carry around ‘in here’. In this light, I am thankful for what appears to be ‘out there’: hurt, loneliness, lack, disease…for these things serve as a mirror to what I carry around within me – mainly a belief in separation from God to some degree.
Jesus speaks of this often in regard to a cup, washing of hands… He states in Mark 7:14-16 “There is nothing from without a man that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.
It’s easier for us to think that the cause of our struggle is ‘out there’. This leaves us powerless, for we can change no one but ourselves. Once we realize that what we perceive ‘out’ there is a reflection of what is ‘in’ here, then we become empowered to change us.
I am thankful for the perceptions that I have of ‘out’ there, for they are an invitation to explore the inner state of my being, which results not in only changing myself, but changing the whole world. At this point I truly begin to see what Jesus called “A New Heaven and a New Earth” and I interact with it differently – with love and compassion.
God, I thank you for all the ‘seemingly’ horrific events of my life for they have been the canvas that have allowed me to see Who I really am; they have called forth a nature that has always been my inheritance; they have brought ‘sight’ to this seemingly ‘blind’ one.
Namaste,
Joan
Profoundly, gloriously true. The darkness is nothing, Light is Everything. Thank you so much for sharing this, as it’s a message we all need to hear.
We can choose Light and Life, and so cancel the no-thing that is darkness.
Our Very Being is Light.