Apparently the great spiritual awakening guide Alan Watts died from embracing his dark side in order to create a more balanced human being. He drank heavily every day and this lifestyle contributed significanly to his death at only 58. I discovered this yesterday morning. Later that day my 15 year old son, who has been on an incredible journey of healing since our arrival here in Portugal, punched his right hand through a small window and lacerated the top of his hand. A trip to the Portuguese accident and emergency unit and 8 stitches later he had already begun to dive deep into what had prompted this outburst. He told me after 24 hours of contemplation that he now understood that the thoughts that were ravaging his head at the time had now softened and he was able to observe them as a witness and not engage with them. The shock and trauma of it all can sometimes wake us up, jolt us signicantly out of our busy mind, if caught early enough. And as Alan Watts tells us, and all the other spiritual masters of our time tell us over and over again, my son had once again been able to distinguish between the thoughts and the observer – realising how his anger and despair could have been expressed differently without the heavy cost of a month of healing and no sports endeavours. Not bad for a 15 year old, let’s hope it sticks.
So what to do with our darkness? Alan had decided to drink and smoke alongside it in protest of how tough it is to live only in the light. My son had taken some dark thoughts and decided to try and stop them in their tracks with an outburst of anger and ultimately an injurty he regrets. So what do I do? For many years I had managed to watch it only, strengthen the muscle of love, feed the correct wolf, fall asleep correctly [some of you will know what I mean] and live many years in full speed balance without any cowardice moves to extinguish that energy and knock it off its tracks. After my life changed dramatically under surprising circumstances I veered away from that path, allowed a darker part of myself to act out irresponsibly, making terrible decisions and even going back to the terrible habit of smoking. The darkess was in full flow propped up by fear and anxiety, Thankfully and eventually the brakes were put on and my head began to bow down again and ask for forgiveness. I was beginning to rebuild my strength and manage to house that magnificent love that many of us have been challenged to withstand.
I had paid a price of acting out parts of my shadow side rather than choosing the road less travelled – to observe, speak the truth when it mattered and not go against that force inside that simply ‘knows’. Not many people in my life see it as that. They see me as the victim in the story, and in part I was but certainly not fully. They believe I did what i had to to survive but deep in my heart I know I had sometimes listened to the darker side of life calling and not the truth. I had lost the strength that resides in the middle. The enormous power between the dark and the light. The tension point in a yoga posture that is used to break away from the physical body. I had stepped out of the tension point where the real power lies and into a matrix of confusion, manipulation and shadowy corners. Today I am grateful that I have rowed my boat back to a more central ground, calmer waters – a place where the light directs me from behind and the darkness provides warnings of a path that no longer serves me. My inner satellite navigation system has been recharged and is slowly communicating with me more clearly again. I had allowed darkness to seep into my being, from others and myself, and now it’s time to strengthen boundaries and use my voice and actions to support the path I was meant to travel………
