Alan D.Wolfelt

from ‘You Must Make Friends with the Darkness Before You Can Enter the Light’

The music of the night

I think that sometimes insomnia, like our dark emotions, has something to teach us. Wakefulness during the dark hours offers us quieter, more mysterious opportunities for reflection than those we may encounter during the day.

Of course, I understand that the dark hours can also conjure our darkest fears. When we awake in the middle of the night, we may lie in bed ruminating over what we have lost as well as our fears for the future. Even if someone else is sleeping nearby, we may feel deeply alone.

If you experience such nighttime despair, try to remember that this is an opportunity to embrace your pain. It is a normal and necessary part of your journey. Consider giving it movement by getting up and out of bed for a while. Keep the lights off or low and pace as you think. Step outside into the moonlight and breathe the night air. Or try writing down your nighttime thoughts and feelings in a journal.

夜眠れないことは、暗い感情と同じように、何かを私たちに教えてくれます。夜の闇の時に目が覚めていることは、日中に遭遇している出来事よりもっと静かで神秘的な内省の機会を与えてくれるのです。

闇の時が、最も暗い不安や恐怖と絡まり合ってそれらを私たちに呼び起こすことを、もちろんわたしは知っています。夜中に目が覚めた時、私たちは、失ってしまったものと、将来に対する恐怖に深く囚われてベッドにいるかもしれません。たとえ誰かが近くで眠っていても、深い孤独を身に感じるかもしれません。

もし、あなたがこのような夜の絶望を経験しているのなら、どうか覚えておいてください、これは、あなたが心に痛みを抱くことかできる、一つの機会であることを。それは人には当たり前のことで、あなたの人生の旅に必要な部分なのです。少しの間、ベッドから起き上がって動きを与えることを考えてみてください。あなたの気がむくままに、灯を、消したままか弱い状態で保ってください。そして月の光がさす、家の外に一歩出てみましょう、そして夜の光の下で呼吸してみてください。もしくは、深い夜の思索と感情を書き出してみてください。

The light of empathy in the darkness

When people are sympathetic to you, they are noticing and feeling concern for your circumstances, usually at a distance. They are “feeling sorry” for you. They are feeling “pity” for you. They may be offering a simple solution, platitude, or distraction. Sympathy is “feeling for” someone else.

Empathy, on the other hand, is about making an emotional connection. It is a more active process—one in which the listener tries to understand and feel your experience from the inside out. The listener is not judging you or your thoughts and feelings. She is not offering simple solutions. Instead, she is making herself vulnerable to your thoughts, feelings, and circumstances by looking for connections to similar thoughts, feelings, and circumstances inside her. She is being present and allowing herself to be taught by you. Empathy is “feeling with” someone else.

In your time of darkness, the loyal empathy of just one other human being can be the candle you need to find your way through to healing.

https://griefwords.com/index.cgi?action=page&page=articles/paradox2.html&site_id=413

SPEND TIME IN "THIN PLACES."

In the Celtic tradition, "thin places" are spots where the separation between the physical world and the spiritual world seem tenuous. They are places where the veil between Heaven and earth, between the holy and the everyday, are so thin that when we are near them, we intuitively sense the timeless, boundless spiritual world.

There is a Celtic saying that heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places that distance is even smaller.

Thin places are usually outdoors, often where water an land meet or land and sky come together.

You might find thin places on a riverbank, a beach, or a mountaintop.

Go to a thin place to pray, to walk, or to simply sit in the presence of the holy.

Your thin places are anywhere that fills you with awe and a sense of wonder. They are spots that refresh your spirit and make you feel closer to God. Go to a thin place today and sit in contemplative silence.