Heaven in Hell — how I free myself from the devil within

It’s a familiar weight, dark in texture, heavy to the heart. It literally weighs me down with the lull of the negative narratives that play in furious succession through my head. Its beat are such familiar tunes, ‘you have no idea what you are doing’; ‘your idea is crap’; ‘nobody loves you’; ‘what are you doing’, ’you will end up back where you started’, and on and on it goes and with each thought, I am carried one step deeper into the spiral, that is, until I decide not to follow.

Sometimes its easier to let heavy emotions of fear, and pain take me on its journey to nowhere. In these moments, the temptation, as I have experienced it, is to close up, fanning the flames with self pity. As this has never served me, I decided to try something different. In moments of pain, when the devil within is dancing a happy jigsaw around my mind and spirit, how can I create heaven in hell? 

My first success story with this was with coloring. It was a little over 2 years ago and I was living the embers of a dying relationship. I had loved him, and the pain of the end was amplified by the lies that had been told to cover other lies. I was experiencing heartbreak, and my Saturday plan had been to ball up and cry myself a pool of sadness in which I could drown my sorrows. Great plan a voice in my head had whispered, “why would you be content to be a shell of yourself while he continues to live, unaware of the sorrow of one many thousands of miles away?”. I picked up a coloring book I had bought in at the supermarket and I started to color. I must have colored for four hours straight, and at the end, I was not the same woman with such unfortunate plans — a new portal seemed to have opened itself. And with that, the realization of the power we have within to create and birth light out of pain. 

Many experiments later, its still a struggle to embrace our God ability to create the reality we wish and to literally say no to the devil that is also within tempting us down the path to nowhere.  The above is most certainly easier said than done, and thats ok, because every day is an opportunity to learn and grow — discovering the paths that work for you on this journey.  As I have experienced it, a first step is awareness. This starts with sitting with these fears and insecurities and in this space of introspection, know its sources. Right now, mine is a fear that I am singularly contributing to a negative spiral in my personal relationship — testing, sulking, brooding — all the while knowing how heavy a price I pay for these emotions. What I am trying to do now, is to step away from judging these emotions and wishing them away and instead ask, what is this state of mind showing me? My fear is speaking, what is it saying? What am I manifesting? what do I have to work on? From where does my fear and its accompanying behavior come?

I choose to free myself each time, learning and growing from each struggle and experience. Leveraging those low moments to build my resilience through literally shinning light on dark corners; through dialogue within and without - knowing that through pain, through difficulties, we grow.  

My hope for myself and for you is that we might consciously navigate the choppy waters, knowing that the storm is as much a part of the ocean as is the calm.