"I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you."

"Rising out of darkness”

"Until we have met the monsters in ourselves we will keep trying to slay them in the outer world. For all darkness in the world stems from darkness in the heart. And it is there we must do our work."

-Marianne Williamson

As I was journaling today, I was inspired to write this post. I had a memory pop into my head that made me feel sad for my younger self. In high school, I was incredibly shy and quiet. I was very guarded and was not able to let a lot of people in until I really felt safe around them. I had a close circle of friends but beyond that, it was difficult for me to open up. It was easier for me to stay quiet and protect myself rather than really open up and try to get to know the kids in school. My home life was very chaotic and quite messy. So I started hiding myself at school to feel safe and stay in the background. I didn't want to be noticed and attention made me feel uncomfortable. In my sophomore year, I had a big crush on a boy I was in band with. I told my older sister and she told her friend, which was the boy's older sister. The sister told the boy that I liked him. I was so mad. Then a couple of weeks later, my sister told me he wanted to ask me to homecoming. I didn't think he would ever ask me and that he couldn't possibly like me back. One morning I was walking to the band hall and I heard him call out my name. He was following me and trying to get me to stop to talk to him. But instead of stopping, I ran away from him. I was so scared to talk to him, I ran away. Later that day I found out he was trying to ask me to Homecoming. He tried asking again but I avoided him again. This was my survival mode, running away from things that made me uncomfortable. I continually would run away from things and abandon myself until recently. Once I learned this was a survival strategy and I was doing this in order to feel safe, I realized that I didn't want to run from things anymore. I didn't want to abandon myself anymore, especially because it was hindering my healing process. The thing about the kundalini and spiritual awakening, you can't run from it. It is here for you to meet your shadow and be a loving witness to it all. All the parts of you that you don't like, the things you regret, all the shame and guilt just comes crashing in for you to feel. And until you can forgive yourself and love all the parts of you, your shadow will just continue to get stronger. So I had to learn how not to abandon myself and embrace it all with love. And be completely accepting of myself, authentic and unapologetic. Because the truth is I NEVER DID ANYTHING WRONG. There is nothing to forgive. It is all here for me to love. Loving myself fully, all of me, all parts, the shame, the regrets, the guilt, completely loving all of it, that's true forgiveness. When everything falls away but the love, you know you have forgiven yourself.

"Forgiveness is for yourself because it frees you. It lets you out of that prison you put yourself in."

Louise Hay

Meeting your shadow requires patience, surrender, forgiveness and love. When I first entered my dark night of the soul, once again my pattern of abandoning myself showed up. I did not want to feel what I was feeling. It felt awful. All I wanted to do was escape feeling this overwhelming shame and self hate. It was not possible for me to run from it. It was here to stay until I was able to surrender and show it love. At first when I was feeling the dark and heavy emotions, all I could do was just let them completely take over. And they did. I was carrying so much grief and shame in my body, my body ached allover. I couldn't get out of bed and most days I was consumed by so much depression I stayed in my nightgown and didn't take a shower unless I had to go somewhere. This lasted for several months. I also experienced spiritual psychosis during this time, I was not sleeping, and there were times I had the urge to literally go outside and run away somewhere far to escape it all. Everything was coming up for me to feel. My past traumas, self hate, shame, regret, fear, ancestral trauma, and so on. It really did feel hellish. I felt like I was dying at times and I didn't feel like I was here anymore. I remember asking my husband "am I still here, am I still alive?" And he would say "yes, of course, I am here with you."

During the beginning of my dark night, I was introduced to someone else who is also in a kundalini awakening. I had the opportunity to go stay with him and his family for a spiritual retreat. Talking with him opened up a lot for me. He is the one who taught me how to love my shadow. He told me when I am in a heavy release and crying and feeling all that shame, to hug myself and to tell the part of me that is hurting "I love you". It took me a while to be able to do this. I was so familiar with abandoning myself, it was uncomfortable for me to hug myself and tell myself "I love you." But when I finally did, things started to change. And I started getting good at it because I became aware of what I was needing to hear from myself. And I saw how I was abandoning myself and how it was hurting me. I didn't want to hurt myself anymore. I began telling myself "I am sorry I haven't known how to love you, I am here now. I am here and I will keep you safe." And when I was sitting on my bathroom floor crying I would just hug myself and tell myself "I love you so much, everything is going to be okay, everything is okay, I am here, you are not alone, I am always here with you." I still have days that I am sitting on my bathroom floor crying and I am still hugging on myself and I am still telling myself "I love you, you are doing amazing, I am so proud of you, you are safe, you got this." And I start feeling the love through the grief, through the pain, through the shame, the love comes through and lifts me out of the fog. Now I am holding my shadows hand and we are walking through this together.

A wonderful forgiveness exercise to practice daily is Ho'oponopono. Put your left hand on your heart and say " I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you." You can do this standing in front of the mirror with your left hand over your heart and look into your left eye as you chant 8 times: "I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you".

To my 16 year old self "I am so sorry you felt so unworthy, so unsafe, and so terrified you had to run away from that sweet boy who wanted to ask you to homecoming. I love you so much, you didn't do anything wrong, you are safe and I am always here with you. Everything is going to be okay. I see you."

"Many of us spend our whole lives running from feelings with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain. But you have already born the pain. What you have not done is feel who you are, beyond that pain."

-Kahlil Gibran