It’s easy to believe negative things after you crash and burn. It’s easy to look out and see the world as an evil place full of evil things and people–doing evil stuff. It’s much easier to blame and judge when you’re overcoming that rock bottom hit.
But, it’s okay. It’s okay that you do that. It’s something anyone who hits rock bottom is likely to do. I know I did all that. And sometimes I still catch myself doing it.
It takes a lot of strength to overcome what a period in a dark place does to a person. Whatever you want to call it. A “dark night of the soul” perhaps. It definitely has an effect on us.
I remember my darkest moment. But it’s not worth writing about. It’s not even worth thinking about, but sometimes I do. I never want to go back there.
When I hit rock bottom I wanted to fight it. I slammed myself into overdrive to prove to everyone that I was right–that I was special–and that I wasn’t one to be held down. It worked to a degree.
There is something to be said for hard work. But there’s an aspect that rock bottom taught me that was more powerful than a healthy work ethic. It taught me how to surrender. Something I had no idea how to do beforehand.
The Darkness Has a Lot to Teach
There are places in the deep dark realms of the human experience that you can’t just muscle your way out of.
Every once in a while–in that hellish chasm–the light shines in and you get a little tidbit of something universal and transcendent; something that makes you understand that, at least right now, you need to be in the dark.
That’s a tough cookie to bite into. But, we can’t have an experience that we can’t learn something from. And the darkness puts massive pressure on us that forces change and growth. Like coal changes into a diamond in extreme conditions within the Earth’s mantle.
You need to be in the dark because there’s something you need to know. The dark period is part of your education. Without it, you can’t:
- Move forward.
- Change into who you really are.
- Achieve full potential.
It may seem like dark periods make the rest of life more difficult. I don’t believe that is true. The rough periods of life are often a catalyst that causes us to launch into a much more powerful sense of being.
It’s easy to take peace for granted if you don’t know adversity. But once you’ve known struggle and chaos, peace has a sweetness to it that’s much easier to taste.
