In the novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett, children are regularly abandoned, bereaved, neglected and ill-treated.
A dark side of beauty
Some parents would prefer their children to read books that are more upbeat, but Wilson's success and the endurance of these classics remind us that children know instinctively what is best for them, and find that their worst fears become more manageable when they are made explicit. It seems that many children have not yet succumbed quite as fully as adults to the "positive thinking" that is fast becoming a social orthodoxy.
Increasingly it is becoming unacceptable to voice legitimate distress. If you lose your job, become chronically ill, or fall prey to loneliness or depression, you are likely to be told - often abrasively - to look on the bright side. With unseemly haste, people rush to put an optimistic gloss on a disaster or to suggest a patently unworkable solution.
We seem to be cultivating an intolerance of pain - even our own. An acquaintance once told me that quite the most difficult aspect of her cancer was her friends' strident insistence that she develop a positive attitude, and her guilt at being unable to do so. Every evening the television news beams images of anguish from all over the world right into our homes - we live on constant terror alert. We naturally want to keep what distress we can at bay.
But while it is important not to succumb to despair, it is also dangerous to deny the suffering to which flesh is heir. As TS Eliot said, humankind cannot bear very much reality.
Some forms of religion encourage us to bury our heads in the sand to block out the suffering that surrounds us on all sides. The rich man in his palace can reconcile himself to the plight of the poor man at his gate by reminding himself that this is part of God's bright and beautiful plan; those who suffer poverty and oppression in this life will be recompensed in the hereafter.
When thousands die in an earthquake, we can tell ourselves that God knew what he was doing. At a literary festival, where I had been describing the fear that lies at the heart of religious fundamentalism, a man in the audience told me that he found this quite incomprehensible. If you have true faith, he argued, you cannot suffer. I suggested that if he lived in a more troubled part of the world we were in Cheltenham at the time , he might find it more difficult to maintain his equanimity.
But I was in a marriage that had its ups and downs like most do.
What I didn't realize was that I was letting my determination to uphold my vows of "until death do us part" drive me to a place that was no longer where my marriage was. I found myself in a very lonely place. The weight of the world was on me to figure this out. How could I do more? How could I fix this? How could I change her? It was so frustrating that I just kept holding it in. To everyone else around me, including coworkers, neighbors and even family, I was living a normal life. I was good at hiding my depression and the dark place it took me to. Fortunately, I never took the drastic action of hanging myself, but I was as close to it as sitting in the rafters with a rope around my neck.
Teen Life: The dark side of the beauty industry - The National
What got me to take the rope off and climb down was not only an important lesson, but it has helped me understand so much more in the years to come. For as bad as I felt my life was, if I were to take my life, I would only be hurting the two people I cared about the most.
In other words, I would be selfish. This is hard to hear when you are in that dark place, but it's the truth. By ending my suffering, all I would have done is transfer that to others who would be affected by it their entire lives.
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- RanDumb-er: The Continued Adventures of an Irish Guy in LA! (RanDumb Adventures).
As that realization entered my head, I began to understand that I had three choices. The first, reason I was in the rafters, was already ruled out.
Primary Sidebar
The other two were: I could get down and live my life the way it had been, or I could decide to change things about my life. Choices that were within my control. Embracing your dark side then, paradoxically supports you to being a lighter, brighter and more authentic YOU. But don't plunge into an abyss just yet.
Meeting your shadow is a skill to be developed. Not all darkness is productive to hang with. Learning how to trust your discomfort is different from strapping yourself into a stagnant depression. If you're willing to gently experiment and put intention toward befriending ALL of your parts, you stand to gain a lot. Here are five reasons why you should connect to your dark side:.
When you let yourself have access to the full range of your humanness, you will have a more authentic and satisfying life experience. You will take greater pleasure in the vast complexities of being you. Mindfulness and self-awareness are the psychic muscles that get sculpted when studying and tolerating a range of feelings and uncomfortable sensations.
Mindfulness practices have been shown to thicken the pre-frontal cortex of the brain — our highest seat of reason.
Teen Life: The dark side of the beauty industry
What we are not aware of tends to get projected onto the people around us. As you clean up your side of the street, you will be more clear about what is "yours," which makes for better contact with others. What you are afraid to know about yourself continues to exist. The body finds creative ways of moving that energy elsewhere, which can cause headaches, shoulder tension, a bleeding ulcer or even more serious health issues. The body and the mind are not separate. When you safely touch into pain and shame, your body softens and becomes revitalized. Choosing to navigate that murky inner terrain strengthens the will and spurs growth and self-development.