Inspiring Stories of Love, Healing, & Empowerment

Inspirations

August 2003

Issue Number 17

Welcome to Inspirations! Global Community For All sends out this e-zine filled with short, inspiring stories of love, healing, and empowerment once every three months. We share these wonderfully inspiring stories to encourage and inspire each other to be the best we can be each day of our lives. If you would like to receive each issue of Inspirations as it is published, click here. Thanks for joining us, and may these words inspire us to ever deepen our commitment to love, heal, and empower; to open to divine guidance; and to choose what’s best for all. 

 

Embracing the Dark Side—Nancy Smeltzer

imaginen@yahoo.com

A retreat that I attended recently had as its theme ‘embracing the dark side.’ “Oh great”, I thought. “That sounds like lots of fun.” I said to myself sarcastically. I’ve spent years being afraid of my shadow side, fearful of what I might find. Others whose opinions I value have suggested that the experience would be healing for me. Upon hearing that, I would make a token gesture, and nod head in agreement. Yet inside, while I could easily accept the concept intellectually, I knew that I hadn’t a clue as how to proceed.

 

So, it was with some trepidation that I began a session of breathwork at the retreat. During such sessions, people often have powerful emotions that come up for them, and crying and screaming is not uncommon. The previous year, I had become terrified in a similar situation, as those around me were releasing their own demons. Their cries of pain sounded as if the hounds of Hell were chasing me, and would claw me to pieces if I didn’t run away fast enough.

 

Once again, the cries and sounds began to swell. This time, however, behind my closed eyes, I was able to mentally hold out my hand, stopping the tortured souls from coming any closer. I marveled at the fact that I could control these entities, and felt very powerful. I could see them twisting and screaming in front of me, yet I was not caught up with them. I was an observer, seeing, hearing, and taking it all in.

 

It was while I was watching them that I experienced a flash of realization. The loudest of the souls before me, was my own dark side. She was a small, angry child who embodied my depressive side with its inability to express anger. Here also was jealousy, greed, and any other of my ugly emotions of which I’m so ashamed. As she screamed in front of me, I remembered the countless wounded children that I had dealt with during my years of teaching school. It was easy for me to comfort them during their pain, but now I was facing the most important child in my life, namely me.

 

In my vision, I dropped to one knee and held out my arms. I gave her permission to yell and scream as loudly as she wanted. I told her that I understood how she could feel a tremendous amount of anger at not being acknowledged and loved all of these years. How could I not be moved, for here before me, was a very real part of myself that I had spent years of time and energy trying to eradicate from my consciousness. Trying as hard as I could, I had attempted countless times to do away with her, only to have her raise her ugly head to torment me once again.

 

Yet, the child standing before me wasn’t ugly. Tortured, and raging because of her years of neglect, yes, but not ugly. As she railed at her treatment by me, I told her how genuinely sorry I was for having hated her presence in my life. I repeated this over and over again as her cries rose and fell. She was fighting hard to rid herself of her own demons.

 

Having spent all of her energy, I drew her close to my left cheek, and held her in my arms. I stroked her brow, and gently covered her head with soft kisses. Soothed, she began to quietly hum, and sank peacefully into my embrace. I realized that she had a lot to teach me, such as how to handle anger instead of turning it inward to depression. She also knows about how to express personal power, and could be my own best teacher if only I would let her.

 

I then called over from my right, my light side. This aspect of me was the part on whom I have lavished loving care. She stood there shining with radiance. Even though my dark side was so very different from herself, she didn’t recoil from her dark sister. I began to introduce them to each other as I swayed them back and forth.

 

Mentally my body was moving as an infinity sign, a symbol that has become very powerful for me. “Dark side, light side. Dark side, light side”, I said to myself. As I began my chant, a brilliant, white light shone before me, even though my eyes were closed. The two little girls began to merge into each other a little, yet still kept their own identities. I then kissed them both on the cheek, and sent them, with an equal amount of love, out into the world. I sank into a deep peace watching the two play, knowing that as my dark side heals, so do I.

 

 

Recognize fear as an invitation to growth.

 

 

Beyond Duality—Fred Burks

fredburks@earthlink.net

 

While doing my morning stretching the other day, I had a powerful realization. I realized that for thousands of years this world has been focused on judgmental duality. The mass consensus has long judged most everything in terms of light vs. darkness, good vs. evil, God vs. Satan, us vs. them. We've been indoctrinated to embrace the light, while avoiding and separating ourselves from darkness, as it is evil; it is of Satan. As a result of this judgmental duality, we've ended up in many deep conflicts and wars both in the world and inside of ourselves.

 

I sense that humanity is now on the brink of a paradigm shift. It is time now to embrace both light and darkness, both good and evil, both us and them. It is time to recognize that all of these are simply aspects or manifestations of the same divine spirit, of the All That Is. It's time to welcome back darkness, evil, and "them" as our long-neglected brothers, as divine children of God who can help us to learn and grow.

 

By embracing the darkness, I'm not in the least suggesting that we unleash our base desires and do whatever we want to whoever we want. We need to stop disempowering behaviors whenever possible. I'm suggesting, rather, that we do our best to accept, understand, and learn from the darkness which causes negative behaviors. I'm suggesting that even as we stop negative behaviors, we look beyond the behavior to the divine spark at the essence of all beings. In doing this, we allow for deep healing to occur. By accepting and embracing the essence of all beings and all parts of ourselves as divine, we open the doors to deep healing and love for all of us.

 

The new paradigm pierces the veil of judgment to see the absolute divinity that lies deep within each of us. No matter how "evil" some people or some parts of ourselves may appear from the outside, deep down we are all love. We are all divine. The darkness is a divine teacher with its own divine purpose. We are all here to learn from and love each other. By welcoming back these lost parts of ourselves--these parts of ourselves we have long judged, blamed, and avoided--we not only allow for deep healing, we invite a deep transformation of all humanity into divine beings capable of powerfully spreading love around the planet.

 

I am deeply committed to helping birth this new paradigm by breathing it and living it as consciously as I can every day and every moment of my life. I invite all who resonate with this to join me. I invite you all to join in transcending the old paradigm of judgmental duality. Let us create a new paradigm of deep healing and love for all beings on this planet and in the universe. Together, we are creating a brighter future by choosing to open to all that we are in this sacred moment!

 

 

Breakfast at McDonald's– Author Unknown

I am a mother of three (ages 14, 12, and 3) and have recently completed my college degree. The last class I had to take was Sociology. The teacher was absolutely inspiring with the qualities that I wish every human being had been graced with.

Her last project of the term was called "Smile." The class was asked to go out and smile at three people and document their reactions. I am a very friendly person and always smile at everyone and say hello anyway, so, I thought this would be a piece of cake, literally.

Soon after we were assigned the project, my husband, youngest son, and I went out to McDonald's one crisp March morning. It was just our way of sharing special playtime with our son. We were standing in line, waiting to be served, when all of a sudden everyone around us began to back away, and then even my husband did. I did not move an inch. An overwhelming feeling of panic welled up inside of me as I turned to see why they had moved.

As I turned around I smelled a horrible "dirty body" smell, and there standing behind me were two poor homeless men. As I looked down at the short gentleman close to me, he was "smiling". His beautiful sky blue eyes were full of God's Light as he searched for acceptance. He said, "Good day," as he counted the few coins he had been clutching.

The second man fumbled with his hands as he stood behind his friend. I realized the second man was mentally challenged, and the blue-eyed gentleman was his salvation. I held my tears as I stood there with them.

The young lady at the counter asked him what they wanted. He said, "Coffee is all Miss" because that was all they could afford. (If they wanted to sit in the restaurant and warm up, they had to buy something. He just wanted to be warm).

Then I really felt it - the compulsion was so great I almost reached out and embraced the little man with the blue eyes. That is when I noticed all eyes in the restaurant were set on me, judging my every action. I smiled and asked the young lady behind the counter to give me two more breakfast meals on a separate tray.

I then walked around the corner to the table that the men had chosen as a resting spot. I put the tray on the table and laid my hand on the blue-eyed gentleman's cold hand. He looked up at me, with tears in his eyes, and said, "Thank you." I leaned over, began to pat his hand and said, "I did not do this for you. God is here working through me to give you hope."

I started to cry as I walked away to join my husband and son. When I sat down my husband smiled at me and said, "That is why God gave you to me, Honey, to give me hope." We held hands for a moment, and at that time, we knew that it was only because of the Grace we had been given that we were able to give. We are believers.

That day showed me the pure Light of God's sweet love. I returned to college on the last evening of class with this story in hand. I turned in "my project" and the instructor read it. Then she looked up at me and said, "Can I share this?" I slowly nodded as she got the attention of the class.

She began to read, and that is when I knew that we as human beings and being part of God share this need to heal people and to be healed. In my own way, I had touched the people at McDonald's, my husband, son, instructor, and every soul that shared the classroom on the last night I spent as a college student. I graduated with one of the biggest lessons I would ever learn: UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE.

 

 

Thanks for sharing in these inspiring stories with us.  We wish you lots of love, inspiration, and all the very best in the coming months.

 

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