Negativity

“Dancing With My Mother”, Elizabeth Williams

I haven’t written or thought much lately about negativity. I dropped my sack of resentments a long time ago, or so I thought. But perhaps I merely traded that large heavy sack for a smaller and lighter one, since I do still feel those resentments popping up on occasion, although I don’t carry them around for very long. I’ve learned to use my inner mirror and my own resources to deal with a lot of the negativity in my life. Sometimes now I forget to do this, though, and on those days when I begin to find myself blaming others, I need to remember that I am resourceful and that any negativity I feel towards others is simply a mirror to something that I am disliking within myself and need to work towards resolving. And sometimes I know I just need to sit with the feelings in the stillness for a while, let them happen and acknowledge them and feel the compassion for myself in dealing with those feelings, so I can return to feeling joyful about my life again.

But now, I feel I am moving once again, to an even deeper part of myself, to the very center of myself. And not everything here is all joyful and happy; there are some deep, dark shadows. I have had dreams of killing the dark negativity, of being grabbed to be taken away by it and turning it around and grabbing it by the throat to choke it. But this is “negative negativity“, as Chogyam Trungpa would say. What I need to learn is to have compassion for these dark places and develop an understanding of why they exist. I need to learn to “be present with my raw edges” as John Welwood puts it. Perhaps if I stop trying to overcome this residual negativity, it will become worthwhile to sit with it and let these remaining storms pass through.