Dark Night Of The Soul Part 2

Flowers from my family after my back surgery, New Years Eve, 2010. (Read my post Dark Night of the Soul part 1 to get the full story.)

I was the one that asked for a divorce. It was a Friday again. Exactly one month had gone by since that dark night in December when I broke. I didn’t see how we could fix our differences, especially now. Money and religion were the two main issues. Those seemed irreparable and unsolvable. That dark, devastating, disastrous day our kids were downstairs crying, sent there while we tried to come to terms with my request. Alex came home that weekend, unexpectedly; but, it was a good thing for the other children to have him there. Our family was disbanding. We might as well have everyone present to witness the entire destruction. I doubt anyone of them will ever forget that night. It was truly dreadful.

               What do Mormons do when their marriage falls apart? They call the bishop. That’s what we did late that night. In our case, he wasn’t much help. Our bishop sent us to counseling through L.D.S services. We had four visits over the next four weeks, and a few more counseling sessions with the bishop too. They didn’t go well. Our bishop blamed Randy for my change of heart in relation to the church. According to him, Randy should have had “better control over me”. That way of thinking didn’t sit well with either of us. We really did do better ‘marriage therapy’ on our own than with the bishop, or the L.D.S counselor.

          In Trumbull Stickney’s poem, The Soul of Time, he poignantly said, “You lean over my meaning’s edge and feel a dizziness of the things I have not said.” That thought is so beautiful, touching, and true for our situation. Randy had no idea I was so unhappy. I hadn’t spoken of my emotional pain to him at all. I had kept all of those thoughts and feelings of deep sadness and complete unhappiness unspoken. However, you can’t fix what you won’t acknowledge. There was a lot I really needed to share with him in order to give our marriage a chance to heal, a chance to be repaired; we both wanted to see if we had any foundation left to build a new relationship and a new life upon. From mid January until mid February, our family was in total turmoil. Those four intense weeks were right out of the deepest, darkest, place in Hell for me; it was my first real refiner’s fire. We were working on things. We were trying to discover a ‘new normal’ with me out of the church and him in it. We couldn’t just throw away twenty two years of marriage with seven kids without first laboring to try to fix it.  

          During those few traumatic weeks, I was changing. It was the start of my transformation, my metamorphosis. I was starting to see a new way of looking at the world. I was tenderly starting to mend the broken pieces of my life, my heart, and my Soul, fitting them back together again in a beautiful motif of my own heartfelt design. My AH-HA moment came just before a trip to Wendover, Nevada for the President’s Day weekend. Randy and I had decided to get away without the kids to try to reconnect, to see a Collin Raye concert, to gamble, and to talk. A few days before we left, it was like ‘the light’ finally appeared. Richelle E. Goodrich said, “To love is to accept a soul entirely, not wishing that the person was otherwise, nor hoping for change, nor clinging to some ideal past. To love is to cherish the individual standing before you presently, charms, quirks, and all. To love is to give someone a piece of your heart that you will never, ever reclaim.” I was done wishing Randy would change. I accepted him completely for who he is.

          The truth was I was the one that had to change, not for him or anyone else, but for myself. I was the one that had to let go of my expectations and my beliefs, to surrender to the unknown, and to embrace the ambiguity of Life. In that blessed moment, I gave myself permission to change my mind completely concerning my beliefs, my Life, and my marriage. I began to put into practice this important truth, “Although we have been made to believe that if we let go we will end up with nothing, Life reveals just the opposite: that letting go is the real path to freedom.” (Sogyal Rinpoche) This was the moment, I truly let go of the church, its customs, and its rules regarding my life! I let go of my beliefs in order to hold on to my faith.  

          Faith as I understood it before really meant loyalty. That is not faith. Faith should not be a rope that binds you to a church, a religious organization, or a dogma, as it had done in my past. I replaced faith in a religious organization with faith in myself. I had come to comprehend that faith, to me, has nothing to do with beliefs. Suddenly I realized faith is really about freedom. I learned from my dark night experience that faith is not something that you do or have; it is something that you become. Faith is an inner accepting, an allowance, and a surrendering to Life. It is not belief, or tied to my beliefs in anyway. Faith is who I AM. My new found faith in myself allowed me to accept the idea, for the first time, that saying ‘I don’t know’ is actually a great thing! It is all right to not have all the answers in Life; in fact, it is truthfully impossible for anyone to have all the answers about Life; and, it is arrogant, conceited, and foolish to believe that you do.

          Finding my faith outside of religion, and inside of me, allowed me to take the giant leap from Mormonism into Mysticism! And, I have never been happier, or more Joyful! Mandy Hale said, “GROWTH is painful. CHANGE is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck where you don’t belong.” Losing my religion was a blessing, and the blessed answer to my misery. It was all right that I didn’t belong in the faith of my family anymore. I was given a second chance to discover what I believed instead of going to my grave living off of other people’s spiritual experiences. Staying in the beliefs of my childhood for a lifetime would have been agonizing to me. My family was right, I was super lucky after all. I had discovered the deceptions, and I could change my Life. As painful as that was, it was all worth it!

          Boyd K. Packer, an apostle of the church who has passed away, had this to say about truth, “I have a hard time with historians because they idolize the truth. The truth is not uplifting; it destroys...Historians should tell only that part of the truth that is inspiring and uplifting.” (Boyd K. Packer, Pillars of My Faith, Sunstone Symposium, Salt Lake City, August 19, 1994) This is why I was so angry when I first discovered the deception in the church. It had been purposely covered up because ‘the truth’ was definitely not uplifting nor faith promoting. The truth about the church was ugly, harsh, and cold in many parts of its history, but I deserved to know it, and then decide for myself if it was true. Now, I want the truth at any cost. Truth is more important than opinions, superstitions, or beliefs. I was very grateful to learn the truth about Joseph Smith even though it rocked my world to its core and turned it all upside down for a while. The truth is precious. Truth is freedom. We deserve to know the truth about the history of the church even if that truth is not faith promoting, then we can decide for ourselves if we want to continue on that path. Discovering this truth was painful, but necessary if I wanted to grow and reach my highest potential in this life.

         

After that weekend getaway, things were much better between us. We did reconnect. I could clearly see the light again after weeks of extremely dark and dreary nights. We stopped discussing divorce as an option and focused on what was right about us rather than our extreme differences. I was also fortunate because I had a husband who still loved me and wanted to be with me, even though according to his belief system, I am now a ‘servant of Satan’; and, I am going to ‘Hell’ when I die. Despite it all Randy chose me once again; and then, I chose him right back.

          Osho said, “The ultimate state of love is freedom, absolute freedom, and any relationship that destroys freedom is not worthwhile. Love is a sacred art to be in love is to be in a holy relationship.” We were finding out that our love was stronger than we had ever realized. Our love was capable of allowing me the freedom to be true to myself, and the freedom for Randy to do the same. Elizabeth Gilbert when talking about Soul mates said, “People think a Soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true Soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A True Soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet because they tear down your walls and smack you awake.” I believe we have many people who come into our life who are our Soul mates, not just one person. Soul mates are more than just sexual partners and lovers. They are our children, parents, friends, and spouses. They are a part of our Soul family. Randy and I have always considered each other to be a Soul mate, and after experiencing this ‘dark night of my Soul’ I have no doubt that we are. This doesn’t mean we have it all together, and that we are a ‘perfect couple’, far, far, from it. But, we are doing our best to learn and grow together while raising a happy and loving family in a mixed faith household, and I could not ask for more.

          As for me, I will always be grateful for my dark night of the Soul experience! It was truly a gift. Though, it took me through the depths of darkness and despair, it also presented me with the radiant, beautiful light of faith in myself. It brought me to a new understanding and a deep appreciation for this Life of mine; plus, it shattered my false beliefs giving me the boundless freedom that I deeply desired! 

If you find from your own experience that something is a fact and it contradicts what some authority has written down then you must abandon the authority and base your reasoning on your own findings. ~ Leonardo da Vinci 

Namaste!
www.iamsacredlight.com
www.sacredlights.net
www.secretsfromtheuniverse.blogspot.com