CULTIVATING BLISS IN YOUR PIT OF DARKNESS: Inspiration For Women In Crisis By Martha Trowbridge

CULTIVATING BLISS IN YOUR PIT OF DARKNESS

Within the life-worn woman, there spreads a pit so black, so wide, so bottomless, so emptied of all that is meaningful or connective, that one by one, every cell within her darkens.

Depression has seized her Spirit.

Bravery has no merit. Entertainment, distraction, dreaming, all are futile. You feel like the living dead.

Despite your efforts, the pit within you becomes impossible to conceal. Soon, your inside slumps out. All that was dear to you feels spilled into a void and forever lost.

In your Inner Universe, light no longer shines. No amount of persuasion, or force, can pull you out of your Pit Of Darkness. If hell exists, surely it dwells within your agonized self.

Through depression's painful agony, your Spirit's life-alarm has reached a not-to-be-silenced pitch. Although your depression feels like your very worst enemy, and suffer unspeakably you do, she is your Spirit's fiercest ally. She has come to speak to you. Her words are vital.

Her visit is odd therapy: an irascible, painful, prodding demand that you restructure your life, root out ills, and plant in their place profound self-love and absolute self-respect. In short, she wants you to create for your Spirit the environs and support She deserves -- and sorely needs.

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Every Pit Of Darkness is custom-made.

Your personal Pit Of Darkness is furnished with feelings and memories designed to torment you. It is wired with sounds to alarm you. It is programmed with your most harsh, critical, terrifying inner voices.

The walls -- if, through the darkness, you can find them -- are iced and slippery, yet studded with gashing thorns. Your Pit has no bottom. You cannot grasp the ridge at its top.

From your Pit, no one can hear you scream.

Time has no meaning there. Self has no importance. Power, money, connections -- no thing or person, no matter how well intentioned, can foreshorten your stay.

The only way 'out' is through bliss.

What is bliss? The Encarta World Dictionary describes it as perfect, untroubled happiness ... a state of spiritual joy. Encarta's other words for bliss: ecstasy, heaven, paradise, delight.

Every woman's Spirit, be she depressed, elated, or somewhere in between, regularly requires bliss. Yet, if you are depressed, experiencing bliss seems 'impossible'. This utter lack of joy in their lives is for many women the most devastating aspect of their depression.

The ability to cultivate and sustain bliss in your Pit Of Darkness is essential. Bliss is your Spirit's fortifier, its means of resuscitation, the inner fuel you use to propel your Spirit up from -- and forever out of -- your Pit Of Darkness. [1]

Yet, feeling and thinking as you do, how on earth can you possibly experience bliss?

Bliss resides in every genuine self-love overture you make.

In your quest for the healing, restorative and sustaining powers of bliss, your self-love overtures can focus upon your feelings, your thinking, and/or your behavior -- it does not matter. What matters is your intention: you must come to your Spirit's aid with wholehearted resolve to now -- and forever -- approach your Spirit with overtures of genuine self-love.

So. Where to begin? You begin with this awareness:

Every woman's Pit Of Darkness

is custom-designed

to showcase the Inner Universe reconstruction needs

of its inhabitant.

Meaning: your particular stressors [fears, failings, losses, worries, shame, traumas, grief, and so on] and the havoc they wreak on your Spirit specifically point to the reconstructive work required in your Sacred Inner Universe.

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Every Pit Of Darkness can be custom-transformed.

The transformation occurs via genuine self-love overtures. Overtures which, with dedication and practice, yield your suffering Spirit the bliss it so sorely lacks. [Two contemplations follow this article. Their techniques are designed to help you activate your bliss.]

The wondrous energy of bliss transmutes merciless self-criticism into wholehearted self-embrace. Blessedly, it prompts your turning toward yourself -- perhaps for the first time ever -- with a genuine loving eye, a kind eye, a thoroughly self-supportive eye. Bliss creates in you profound satisfaction. Peace. Assurance. When your Spirit dwells in an Inner Universe imbued with bliss, the shortcomings, failings, wounds and worries of your life cease to occupy a position of authority. Yes, they may be 'there', but they become relegated to their appropriate position: lowly subordinates to the magnificent, reigning power of bliss.

If you are deeply depressed, your initial attempts at cultivating bliss will likely produce little. This is to be expected. Think of it this way: your Spirit needs coaxing, to 'come back'. She needs to trust that you are now committed to its caretaking. She needs to be assured that from this moment on, you have made a solemn promise to genuinely, wholeheartedly, and faithfully practice self-love.

As you conduct your bliss-work, you must trust that with dedicated self-love overtures, bliss can be yours. You must trust that bliss is 'there', within you, even if you cannot sense it. With every failed attempt to access your bliss, you must infallibly believe, that when the moment is right, your bliss will begin to manifest.

You must not grow impatient, or frustrated, as you conduct your bliss-work. Instead, you must quietly and wholeheartedly surrender your weary Spirit to the glorious, transformative, phenomenal process of genuine self-love.

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At last, the amazing moment manifests.

Up from a place so profoundly deep within you, you do not recognize it, bliss emerges.

At first, it may feel like a spark. It may come, and go, like the quick light of a firefly. That may be all you feel.

Rejoice! Your Pit Of Darkness has been visited by bliss. It happened. Your Spirit felt bliss! As you continue your genuine self-love overtures, you will feel bliss again. More intensely. For longer periods of time.

Liken your spark of bliss to a tiny coal in a woodstove. Carefully, stubbornly encircle it. Protect it. Nurture its burning. Add to its life, by assembling around it thoughts, memories and wishes that evoke in you joyous energy. As you fall asleep each night, remind your self: today I was able to feel bliss! Delight in this fact, even if your bliss was only for a moment -- it is proof you can once again experience bliss!

With faithful self-love, you will.

Remember: as you cultivate your bliss with continued overtures of genuine self-love, longer and more intensely, your bliss-sparks will stay lit. Soon they will aggregate into a 'fire' that ever-burns within you.

Trust that the tiniest spark -- oh so delightful, and determined -- lies within you, at this very moment. [2] Imagine it, there, burning. Imagine your bliss, within you!!! Soon, there will be another spark. Then another.

Though, for now, you remain 'trapped' in your Pit Of Darkness, continue to draw in tiny sparks of bliss, and make them yours. Ferociously, defend them against attack. Against efforts by others to extinguish their precious energies. They are yours -- wonderfully warm, revitalizing feelings for you to wholly love and cherish. Feelings that prove: with work, you can be joyous once again -- or, for the very first time.

As you read this article, you are a witness: my bliss-sparks have aggregated into a wondrous ever-burning flame, lighting, warming, energizing me. Strengthening me. Empowering me to happily step back into the shoes of The Woman I Was Born To Be.

If today, you can identify a tiny bit of bliss within you, from it evoke the hope of joy, tomorrow. Then tomorrow, perhaps, you can cultivate another tiny bit of bliss. And so on. With ongoing dedication, some day, your entire precious Spirit, triumphant in self-love, will resonate with bliss.

Conscious cultivation of bliss is something most women were never taught to do. As we prepare to gloriously Rebirth out of our Pit Of Darkness into The Women We Were Born To Be, cultivating bliss is our most important task.

Reflection: When you are up to it, in a quiet private place, begin to list the 'self-beliefs' you have, as you suffer depression. It likely will take several visits within you to compile your self-belief profile. As you reflect and write, do not judge or condemn your self -- just report. When you sense that all has been recorded, place this paper in a private place and let it be.

As You Prepare To Rebirth: Without consulting your self-belief profile, which one of your negative self-beliefs would you like to begin to correct? [It may be helpful to start with the smallest of your negative self--beliefs.] Once you have chosen a self-belief to work at, imagine you are another woman, a wise, wonderful, trustworthy woman, looking at yourself. What in your life-history can she see, that identifies the root of this painful belief? What small 'correcting' observation -- based upon an event in your life-history -- can she suggest you embrace?

Now, close your eyes. Gently pushing aside any intrusive painful thoughts and feelings, once again be that other woman. Imagine she is looking at your earliest days. Focus. Can she identify one moment, when you were a child or young girl, in which you displayed the OPPOSITE of your current painful self-belief? Think. Think of that long-ago time. Stay very quiet. Breathe deeply. Breathe gently. Aaaah. There it is: the recognition of a moment in your life, in which the horrible negative false self-belief that now controls you, simply did not exist. Savor this moment, in which you were the opposite of what you now feel you are. Recall the reality of your strength. [Please note that you likely will not feel this reality yet. But you can think about it.] In your Spirit, scan for a tiny spark of bliss.

If you have the time and energy, recall another specific situation in which you displayed this strength. Do not expect to 'feel' your strength in your current state of Spirit -- you may not yet be ready.

If, at this time, you are unable to generate a spark of bliss, so be it. Do not despair. When you are up to it, try this exercise again, perhaps in a different setting, or at a different time of day. If you find yourself feeling stuck, try working at a different false self-belief. Your Spirit may so devastated, it needs additional coaxing to trust again. Assure Her that you are now prepared -- and committed -- to tend to Her wellbeing.

As you practice genuine self-love overtures, and continue with your reflections, bliss -- even if in tiny sparks -- will begin to inhabit your Pit Of Darkness. Once it does, you'll have commenced your glorious Rebirth into The Woman You Were Born To Be.

NOTES

1. Actually, as you emerge, your self-love overtures work to 'fill' your Pit with wondrous energies, neutralizing and replacing its snarling negative energies, so that in time your Pit's existence is merely a unpleasant memory.

2. How do I know this? I know this by the simple fact that you come to these words, seeking.