The Light and The Dark

Photo by Syed Ahmad on Unsplash

When people see things as beautiful, ugliness is created.

When people see things as good, evil is created.

Being and non-being produce each other.

Difficult and easy complement each other.

Long and short define each other.

High and low oppose each other.

Fore and aft follow each other.

- Tao Te Ching

I had a lot of unprocessed negative emotions. As I look back, I can’t recall anyone in my life ever taught me how to process and manage my emotions in a healthy way. Although I went to some of the best schools in Indonesia and in the US and achieved highly in academic life, no one taught me how to become emotionally intelligent. It was all about the IQ. It didn’t help that my old coping mechanism when I felt strong uncomfortable emotions was to go numb, suppress, shut down, escape, and refuse to feel or deal with those emotions.

It all started from a childhood trauma. When I was ten, I was sent by my mother to live with my grandma, aunt, and cousin in Palembang, the capital city of South Sumatra, a four-hour drive away from my home village. My mother’s intention was good. She wanted me to have a better education and a better life. But the ten-year-old me was not ready to part with my parents and my siblings. I remember crying for two weeks straight wanting to go home, but my father never came to fetch me. So, after two weeks drowning in tears, I realized that it was useless to cry so I stopped crying and vowed to never cry again in my life. It was a pretty dramatic promise to make for a ten-year-old girl, but I felt helpless, powerless, unloved, unworthy, rejected, and unsupported. So, I totally shut down my emotions, closed my heart, and became a sad, quiet, and unhappy girl who lived alone in a gloomy wooden attic. Later on, one by one my siblings started to join me but my feelings were never resolved. And I chose to be busy with my books and stories, escaped my reality, and imagined living in a totally different world.

As an adult I became a piggy bank filled with savings of unprocessed feelings. Often times, I could only feel a specific emotion long after that emotion occurred and the reaction would be delayed. I would suddenly cry at random moments when the emotions started to overflow and could not even figure out why I was crying. All these unprocessed negative emotions have manifested into physical and mental health issues, from digestion related, hormone imbalance, allergy to depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. My body has given me many signals and messages for me to deal with my emotional wounds, but I always chose to ignore them.

Dealing with emotions was a real struggle. There were times in my life when I felt that negative emotions were not welcomed at all and they were labelled as “bad emotions”. I realize now that a lot of people are not comfortable with negative emotions, prefer to shove them away, use “being nice or civil” and bury them under the carpet, and probably don’t even know how to handle them. Once, I lived in Florida for nearly eight years. During that period, I felt a lot of pressure from the American society to always be nice, civil, and positive. Instead of feeling liberated by the expected positivity, I felt caged and suffocated because I didn’t feel that I could have or express any negative emotions. I felt like I lived in a fake society with fake positivity, fake harmony, fake smile, fake greetings, fake boobs, fake wealth, fake friendship, and fake everything. This of course wasn’t the whole truth but I was trapped in my own prison. A lot of people told me “Great job! You are amazing!” while all I wanted to do was actually scream at them and told them that “I don’t always do a great job or I’m not always amazing”. I also didn’t like it when someone told me to be happy when I felt sad (as if there’s a toll road to go from one to the other emotion). So, I really struggled fitting in and had a hard time expressing myself and becoming authentic and to be me. Looking back, it’s really a lesson for me to stay authentic and true to myself regardless of any external situations.

Almost two years ago, I was introduced to meditation. Meditation has truly saved my life! After more than a year of constantly practicing meditation, mindfulness, and heartfulness, l open my heart and am fully connected to my feelings again. My relationship with my parents especially my mother has healed and I am grateful for the good education that has contributed positively in my life. My health has improved significantly and I am free from most of my health issues. As I reflected on my emotional journey, I realize that both negative and positive emotions that I felt have played vital roles in my life. As a human being, I understand that I can’t feel positive at all times and I will continue feeling negative emotions as long as I shall live unless I become fully enlightened one day. I recognize that it is totally fine and normal to feel negative and uncomfortable emotions and embrace them as well. I feel deeply grateful and blessed that I am becoming emotionally intelligent.

Through spirituality, I learn to do inner or shadow work. I learn healthy and effective ways to express, process, manage, and master my emotions – both positive and negative. I learn to be aware, allow, and acknowledge my emotions; to let go and release what I don’t need; and to accept, understand, and transform negative emotions or experience into life lessons and blessings. It is not always easy as one can imagine but it is worthy. I understand that it is certainly nicer to feel positive emotions like happiness, joy, peace, and love. I also recognize that being positive is an important virtue. But this doesn’t mean that I am denying or allergic to negative emotions like anger, sadness, loneliness, and disappointment. Like yin and yang philosophy, the duality are natural and constant parts of our lives. As portrayed in the yin-yang symbol, the dark and the light are not separate. They are interconnected, blending with each other, and creating one continuous flowing circle or cycle, representing wholeness, balance, and harmony. I only appreciate my Light and the Angel in me because I experience and have the Dark and the Demon/shadows in me. I accept and embrace both sides of myself unconditionally. There is no Light without the Dark. There is no Dark without the Light. The Dark is the Light. The Light is the Dark*. I am both Light and Dark. And I choose to be the master of my Dark and shine my Light brighter because I AM a Warrior of Light!

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* Quote by Micheala Anggono (Thank you Star Sister!)

** Listen to this beautiful divine song: I Am Light by India Arie.

*** Watch an inspiring TEDEd by John Bellaimey: The Hidden Meanings of Yin and Yang.

  

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First drafted in Jakarta in June 25, 2020.