Dark Nights of the Soul—
Resistance is Futile
(and that's good!)
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As the intensity of the external energies continues to increase, we are all being shown, one way or another, that Resistance is Futile! This is not a concept that most of us like to think about, because we like to pretend we are in control. And because we won’t think about it, many of us are having our noses rubbed in it—in quite unpleasant ways! Old, unresolved and unhealed issues are ambushing us at the worst times, and our long-held attitudes and beliefs are being brought into question, causing confusion, disorientation, acting out, and meltdowns all over the place.
Have you been holding on to something or someone that you’ve known for awhile that you need to let go? Like a child playing too long with a toy when Mom calls you for dinner, you are likely to have the toy taken from you and put away (possibly with a spanking and no dinner).
Have you been failing to stand up for yourself in a relationship because of fear, or because you are trying to keep the peace? That hard-won tentative peace is likely to blow up in your face, and you’ll have to admit it’s not only too much effort, but it’s not working!
Have you been putting off healing/resolving an old wound, because you fear it might be too painful to contemplate? That bandage may be ripped off, exposing the wound to the light of day, so that you can no longer avoid dealing with it.
Have you been letting yourself rest on your laurels and bask in your ego, feeling somewhat smug because you feel you’ve mastered it all? You are about to be taken down a peg!
Have you been busy maintaining a façade for the world, rather than allowing yourself to let down your guard and be your authentic self, because you’re afraid of rejection and pain? Your mask is likely to be pulled off in the most humiliating way, exposing you in all your unprepared glory for all the world to see.
Those are just a few examples of the way we hide from the truths we need to see and the lessons we need to learn, but most can relate to at least one. When things get rough, most of us entrench, rather than making meaningful change. Even if our lives are difficult and unhappy as they are, they are familiar! The energies of change are hard enough to deal with, so why would we want to actually make any real changes?!
Like the proverbial frogs in the heating water, most of us haven’t paid enough attention to what is going on in our lives and in ourselves—we've been running so hard and fast trying to keep up (see side article) that we haven’t heeded the warning signs that something has to change. First the warning comes as a whisper, or a vague feeling of unease or discontent—that feeling that something just isn’t right. Then it taps us on the shoulder. Then it grabs us by the shoulder. Then it shakes us. Each time we ignore it, it comes back more forcibly, trying to get us to pay attention to what is going on, what really needs to change, NOW!
Unfortunately, when we repeatedly ignore the subtle and then not-so-subtle communications of the Universe, the Cosmic 2x4 finally comes out, and even the mighty tremble (if they're smart)! Well, folks, the Cosmic 2x4 is now in full swing, and none of us can keep ducking it forever! Now is the time we can start wishing we had listened to those whispers!
We have all truly entered the season of the Dark Night of the Soul, and no one is exempt. It’s time for Surrender with a capital “S”—and resistance is futile.
What is a Dark Night of the Soul?
If you’ve had a Dark Night of the Soul, you don’t need anyone to tell you what it is, and you never want to have another one, at least not in this life. If you’ve had one lately, you are right on schedule, and probably still in recovery. If you’ve never had a Dark Night of the Soul, pay attention, because one is likely to be coming your way in the next six months.
Dark Nights of the Soul come when something happens that knocks us on our butts, pulls the rug out from under us, and leaves us gasping for breath. They feel like a sucker-punch to the stomach, coming from left field. Sometimes they come from something horrendous and devastating that happens—a sudden death, a terrifying diagnosis, an unanticipated divorce, being fired, or a physical loss of home and possessions due to a weather event.
But sometimes they sneak up on us, like a thief in the night: the cause can be subtle, like a breakthrough thought, a confrontation with a truth you can’t deny about how you’ve been betraying yourself, or some quiet little event that makes you see that you didn’t know yourself—or life—as well as you thought, and your house of cards comes crashing down on your head.
No matter what the cause, Dark Nights of the Soul make us question everything we thought was true. They force us to question everything we believe (whether we knew we believed it or not). They undermine our confidence and understandings of life and ourselves at the deepest levels—down to our very souls.
Dark Nights of the Soul force us in no uncertain terms to finally recognize—and admit—that control is an illusion, that we cannot “conquer the world” as we’d once thought, that we aren’t the persona that we try so hard to project to the world (and that no one, except us, was really fooled by it).
“Being humbled” doesn’t come close to describing what happens. During Dark Nights of the Soul, we are forced to accept our own mortality, our own frailty, our own perfidy, our own ignorance, our own arrogance, our own delusions, our own incompetence, and our total lack of control.
It’s as if the Universe gets us in a body lock (more like a mental and emotional body lock), twisting us like a pretzel until we are forced to give up. Of course, we fight back! We argue when we’re shown that we really don’t know anything; we argue when we’re shown that all our beliefs are wrong; and we argue when we have our noses rubbed in the idea that everything we thought was important, everything we have achieved or acquired in life, is absolutely meaningless (and could be taken away in an instant). And the more we argue, the worse it gets!
The Universe doesn’t bother arguing back, it just lets us keep arguing until we can actually hear how pathetic we sound. It lets us keep arguing for our own limitations until we realize that we have merely been believing our own PR (that story and façade we put out there about ourselves in our attempt to make ourselves feel okay), and until we realize that none of it is really true. It keeps pressing its advantage until, with a final whimper, we throw up our hands, admit that we control nothing, that most of the life we’ve been living is a fraud, that we know nothing, including who we are. It keeps tightening its grip until, exhausted from the struggle and feeling totally isolated and alone, we finally surrender.
That’s the Surrender with a capital “S.” That’s surrender like we’ve never had to surrender before. It’s not an “okay, you win” kind of surrender, it’s a “take me now, because I just can’t do this [living thing] anymore” kind of surrender.
And then, after we’ve hit rock bottom and lain there for awhile, realizing it’s just too hard to be on planet earth as a human, and we can’t do it alone anymore, the Universe lets us feel how very connected—and how not alone—we really are.
It’s like holding on for dear life to the railing at the edge of the cliff and having your fingers slowly and forcefully pried open until you can no longer hold on. You feel yourself falling down into the chasm—only to be suddenly swooped up by unseen hands, or to land on the biggest softest mattress imaginable. But during that time of free-fall, which seems to be unending, you don’t know how you'll end up (and, at that point, you really don’t care).
From all of those who have endured Dark Nights of the Soul, can I hear an “Amen”?
So What’s Not to Like???
As much as we hate them, Dark Nights of the Soul are the most precious gift we can get from God/the Universe/All That Is. But they come in a dark, often ugly package that we don’t appreciate at the time. We experience it on a very small scale when we get that ugly heavy Christmas sweater from Grandma, instead of the new electronic gadget we’d hoped for—the sweater that we end up feeling very grateful for when the heat goes out and the temperature outside gets below 0, or that we cling to and love after she dies.
Periodically, we really do need to hit rock bottom, and be forced to take a long look at ourselves—and how we’ve been kidding ourselves in our attempts to fool everyone else— and be shown that we have to stop believing our own PR, and be presented with the opportunity to GET REAL again.
Heaven knows, we don’t do it voluntarily!
Just like all of our precious electronics, once in awhile, we all need to be turned off and rebooted again, even if we hate being shown just how frail and unconnected and fraudulent and just plain wrong we have let ourselves become. We need to have our over-inflated egos cut down a peg, hauled out of the driver's seat, and thrown into the back seat, where it really belongs, because our egos were never intended to drive the vehicles—they were intended to be more like a back-seat driver.
Periodically, we all need to be reminded of Who We Really Are. And that’s no small thing at all: We are all powerful, Divine, Creator Beings. It’s just that we have gotten so caught up in the illusion that we call everyday life on planet Earth—and the persona that we are playing in that illusion as we try to meet the perceived demands of the society we have created—that we forget Who We Are, or worse, we start to believe that the persona we have been portraying is somehow better than Who We Really Are. Most of us go even farther: we come to loathe who we think we really are (because that thought is an illusion, too) and cling desperately to the persona we’ve constructed to cope with our self-loathing. (AKA: egos run amok!)
Just as a paint-encrusted chest of drawers can be stripped down to reveal the beauty of the wood underneath, Dark Nights of the Soul are like our personal form of turpentine. They don’t change who we are; they reveal and remind us of Who We Really Are. Stripped of our bravado, our ego, our false sense of arrogance, our defensiveness, our judgments, our erroneous beliefs, our self-righteousness, and our illusions, we are left with “merely” Who We Really Are. And that is no small thing (in fact it’s HUGE), but it is something many of us have never looked in the face because we’ve been so busy pretending to be someone else to please others.
We are forced to feel alone in our humanness, to feel our deep pain and despair, recognizing that we are just like every other human on the planet, and that we need each other to survive and thrive.
At the depths of that Dark Night, we finally call out for help, because it’s the only thing we can do. And that is our salvation! It is the recognition that we need help, that we can’t do it alone—along with the realization that help is always there—that saves us on a deep, deep level… the level not of the ego, but of the Soul.
We crawl out of the Dark Night of the Soul feeling raw, and new, and vulnerable, but with a new inner resilience, a renewed sense of our place in the Universe and the All That Is, a new knowledge of the miracle of life and how surrounded by love and assistance we truly are, and a new understanding of how we are all the same under the skin and under the masks.
We need to be very gentle and patient with ourselves as we move back into the light, because it may take us awhile to reorient ourselves to this brave, new Self. And over time, most of us have to make a number of tweaks to our personality and even our life circumstances as we adjust to and integrate the new level of understanding and knowledge we’ve reached—we let go of the toxic and self-sabotaging beliefs and attachments (or at least some of them), and we leave the situations that have become detrimental.
And if we’re very lucky—and if we use the Dark Night of the Soul to the maximum—we will move back into our lives with new eyes, an open heart and an open mind, and a new appreciation of our true, Authentic Selves. And maybe, just maybe—and only if we’re strong enough—we’ll show that Authentic Self, without the mask and the persona (without the “spin” and the PR) to the world, and begin to shine our Light brightly and unfiltered in all its true glory!
And that's a good thing, because that’s what we’re here to do, after all!!
All content copyright © Ellyn Dye, 2016.
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Time Flies When We're....
Er, Whenever!
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Time flies when we're having fun, right? Well these days, time flies no matter what we're doing!
Time has definitely speeded up in the last few years, and it seems as if it's upped a notch since the first of the year, which was, what, about 4 months ago? Oops! No, closer to 7!! Doesn't seem possible, does it?
Time is another thing that the Universe is showing us, in no uncertain terms, we can't control, and most of us can't even keep up!
Back in the 70s or 80s there was a book called I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can, by Barbara Gordon, about a woman who "had it all," but lost it all because of too much stress and too many bandaids to hold it all together for too long. She wasn't really dancing, because there was no joy in it. She was merely running to try to keep up, and succeeding only in exhausting herself.
We can only run so fast to maintain our idealized lifestyles of perfection and having it all (whatever that means to us).
This is yet another way that God/the Universe/All That Is is helping us to Just. Let. Go. We need to stop running, take stock, really figure out what is important in our lives, and what really supports us and nurtures our souls, and re-prioritize how we spend our time and energy. We need to live in the NOW.
These days, a "time and energy" budget is almost as important as a money budget. If we aren't living within our money budget, and within our means, we end up drowning in debt. If we aren't living within a time and energy budget, we run non-stop, still don't get everything done, and end up ruining our greatest asset: our health. Our bodies can only take so much abuse (poor eating habits, not enough sleep, not enough exercise) before they simply knock us off our feet.
If we only get a mild "wake-up call," like a cold that knocks us out of commission for a week, or a sprain that takes us off our feet, we're pretty lucky. Just ask anyone whose wake-up call is a diagnosis of cancer or some other feared and challenging disease.
So what can we do? First, we have to admit that we can't do it all. We have to assess everything we're doing and eliminate whatever does not actively support us. Then we have to eliminate more!
We've established a society that requires working more and more to keep up with raising costs. At some time or other, if not nonstop, we've all felt like we were on the proverbial hamster wheel, running faster and faster, yet getting nowhere.
Instead of running faster and working longer and harder (often at jobs we don't even like, but feel we need to have in order to survive), perhaps it's time to move to a less-expensive area or at least give up the big house, new cars, etc., etc., to let our money go farther and give ourselves a break and a chance to actually live our lives instead of working them.
In fact, giving ourselves a break is the key word! We have to arrange our lives in a way that supports us—body, mind, and spirit. And we have to figure out anew what's important in life and what feeds our souls.
Time is not going to slow down. In fact, time speeding up is a good sign, because time speeds up as we collectively raise our vibrations.
Time speeding up is another wake-up call—a milder form of the Dark Night of the Soul—to force us to hit the pause button, reassess, make some meaningful changes in our lives, and Get Real!
And don't worry, if you can't quite get yourself to make voluntary adjustments, the Universe will bring out the old Cosmic 2x4 and help you!
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The (Astrological) Hits
Just Keep on Coming!
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The emotional roller-coaster ride that we experienced in June will continue in July, with a slightly different flavor. According to astrologer Carl Boudreau, we are continuingly being urged toward creating a more equitable society that benefits everyone, rather than the current oligarchy that benefits the 1%, which was slowly created over the last 30-40 years. And it's hitting us on the personal, national, and global levels as we are all forced to take a good long look at ourselves and what the heck we're creating out there!
Since last fall, the heavens have been dominated by a Mutable T-Square, involving Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune, each in mutable signs. In June, the Sun, Venus, and the Moon took turns in aspect to the T-Square, creating a series of Grand Mutable Squares. We also had a Full Moon on the Summer Solstice, which, by itself, gave us all a double-whammy of astrological energies.
In July, the Sun, Mercury, Venus, and the Moon will take turns creating Cardinal T-Squares with Uranus and Pluto.
In other words, we’re in the next phase of breakdown, break through, and re-creation following the great Uranus/Pluto square, and much of the emphasis is on deconstructing the oligarchy (or Plutocracy) and returning to “liberty, equality, fraternity,” which was the motto of the French Revolution.
Remember, the last time Pluto was in Capricorn was, in fact, the 1770s—those amazing years that brought us the French and American Revolutions. Frankly, if we weren’t experiencing major political turmoil, with the People at odds with the ruling class, it would almost be too weird!! We're actually right on schedule! And this year, we have a New Moon on Independence Day (the date of the birth and Solar Return of the United States), so let's all take a moment that day to envision and intend where we want our country to go, and how we want it to heal and start functioning again, with legislators who actually represent the People.
You can find Carl Boudreau’s astrological analysis on his Facebook page. Jessica Murray also focuses on the impact of the Uranus/Pluto square and subsequent astrological transits on the United States in her ongoing series, America in Transition. Her general astrology blog is here.
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Here's what you'll find on my website, www.LionMagic.com:
Check out my new NDE presentation at the Fellowship of the Inner Light in Virginia Beach on February 7, 2016 on YouTube, here. This link and links to two other presentations, given on February 6 for the VB IANDS group will be posted soon on my website, so check back!
My me taphysical fantasy novel, The Search for the Crystal Key, is an adventure for all ages about believing in yourself and the power of love, with tools for living and information about how life works that I received during my NDE. Available now in paperback, EPub, and Kindle! This is a great life "primer" for those "new kids" ages 10 and above!
 Downloadable mp3s of my Journey Through the Tunnel presentation and guided meditation to go through the Tunnel of Light, feel the unconditional Love of Home, and bring it back to planet earth.
Information about my Intuitive Coaching (by phone and Skype) and my Reconnective Healing Services, offered long distance and now in Virginia Beach.
And FREE for your information:
Recordings of new radio interviews, with discussions of my NDE, what I learned, and what's going on "out there."
My "3 minutes of fame" on Fox News talking about my NDE!!
The complete list of "What I Learned from Dying."
The video of "Creating Heaven from Hell," my September 2012 presentation at the conference of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS), with details about the Great Shift and the astrological influences, what is happening, and what we can do to navigate through these times of radical and dramatic change.
The Archives of all past issues of Tunnel Vision!
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 I am an Intuitive Coach, Public Speaker, Author, Reconnective Healing® practitioner, and Practical Mystic.
A Near-Death Experience (NDE) in 1985 expanded my psychic abilities and created a link with some very loving—and humorous—Guardians of humanity and the ancient wisdom, who gave me a huge amount of information about life and the evolution of mankind.
I bring this knowledge and connection to my clients and audiences, along with over 30 years’ accumulated wisdom and understanding of metaphysics, life on earth, and Who We Really Are.
I am the author of the metaphysical fantasy novel, The Search for the Crystal Key—an adventure about believing in yourself and the power of Love; and I am currently writing a new book, Creating Heaven on Earth... One Soul at a Time; A How-To Manual from the Perspective of a Near-Death Experience.
Find out more at LionMagic.com.
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