The Dark Side

[yonica]

I feel like I am at a critical stage. I had all of this optimism and hope. I think I have finally run out. That line about still believing in Beauty, Truth and Love that I've always had in my profiles: I think I might be axing it, I really don't think I do anymore, and I actually feel like mocking myself for ever having it there

Comments

[siyeh]

Being dark isn't evil. It's about understanding that our lives are structured on a continuum that demands we try to all stay on one side of it--the good, the light, the positive, whatever--when that throws everything off balance. Even in our own lives--I so intensely believe this--we have to balance ourselves. So if you've been trying to believe in beauty, truth and love, or optimism itself, it's no wonder you're shifting to a dark place. In the dark, things are more intense, and they're often more beautiful. I don't think you're evil, and I think it's just jerks who try to conflate evil and dark. So embrace your dark moments. Allow yourself time to push your boundaries. Feel out your limits.

I think it's awesome to own it.

[yonica]

It's less an actual "dark" feeling, than being just filled with hate and anger and bile during most waking moments. But maybe you're right and I just have to soak in it awhile, test those limits. It's just that with all the anger comes a desire sometimes to do mean things, and I don't want to do mean things. Maybe there's a way to let all this negativity wash over me, but not effect me in the ways I fear...

Wait, are you trying to pull me over to the dark side? Are you the emperor?
;)

OK, maybe I should stop with the Star Wars analogies... I fear they've been stretched too thin.

[thisisthenow]

When Mr. spock is evil in the mirror universe, all they do is slap a goatee on him and BOOM instant evil.

Maybe all you need is a goatee.

[yonica]

Hmmm.... I worry that a goatee on a woman may come off more as "sideshow freak" than "evil."

And definitely not hot evil.

Once you have gone down

[thisisthenow]

http://www.georgettesworld.com/main/emperor.jpg

Re: Once you have gone down

[yonica]

yeah, that is definitely not hot-evil!

[bodhicea]

I am hearing that this comes from anger. Anger is not a bad emotion, it is just a base emotion. To build on what siyeh says, it is important for you to experience it. There are ways to rise above anger (without going to the mean-spirited place), but to do so, you must go though it, and not turn your back on it, trying to suppress it.

One piece of advice is to observe the anger, but not the source (not the things that have made you angry). Observe how the anger makes you feel, how it affects you emotionally, physically, spiritually. Pick it up and examine it. Then it becomes something solid that you can put back down and leave behind. Trying to shove it away as an amorphous mass will cause it to keep following you around, clawing at you.

Anger is a weapon, and a weapon that is usually used against you. Once you feel it and understand it, it loses its power. The more you can feel it now and undertsnd it, the less power it--and the things that have potential to make you angry--have over you in the future.