Positivity. Affirmations. The Law of Attraction. I got into all that back in the 80s and – guess what? – it worked. Seriously, it did. I took a course of rebirthing and obediently repeated ‘I, Jane, love and approve of myself’ each and every day, gazing into the mirror. I pushed aside every slightest hint of negativity and – thrived! My career went like a dream, my income went stellar and I felt – pretty fantastic. High as a kite. Then I discovered Jung.
I came down to earth with a sickening thud as I realised that there was a seething pit of darkness and depression squashed underneath all that relentless positivity. I smacked through the veneer of nice and dived in, sank to the very bottom of the pit and grubbed around there for…aeons. I came to despise the New Age sparkles and light philosophy: it wasn’t ‘real’, it wasn’t gutsy, it wasn’t primal.
I stayed suspicious of it. The Law of Attraction stuff, The Secret and all, irritated me. It seemed facile, shallow, spirituality ‘lite’. Then I went to Penninghame.
Here I discovered that, actually, it isn’t an either/or situation. You can go deep, you can go primal, you can thrash around in the cesspit of your darkest emotions, you can own your grimmest, most ghastly secrets yet…you can also be bright and light and relentlessly, crazily optimistic and positive. They are not at war, they are not opposites.
Yes, you may have to go deep and dark before you can shoot back up to the light. But above all, you can be both – deep and dark yet also sparkly and shimmery bright. Demon and angel, monster and mage. Equally there are times, seasons, for these moods. Right now, I’m done with doom and gloom, depression and despond. I’m done with mousy and morose. I’m done with pissed off and poor. So, fuck it – I’m blasting myself with pure powerful purposeful positive plosives – I’m filling my head with those good old abundance chants once more; I’m staring into the mirror and smiling, reminding myself that I am so so so lucky. Because, of course, I am. We all are. We just don’t choose to recognise it, do we? And when we don’t? Our minds snatch at the negativity and make it come real for us. Our minds are nothing if not obliging – thought really is creative. Decide you’re unlucky and you will be, sure as sure can be.
I was going to go into a long explanation about the Mul Mantra but hey, just listen… and smile. Gratitude to Zena from Tazeka Aromatherapy who nudged me into listening to Snatam – good stuff.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Comments
Hi Jane – I resonate with what you’w written here completely! Love it. We must’ve been on the same path without knowing it.
Ah, I missed this comment! So glad you liked it. xx