2013-01-25: Keeping Faith in your Darkest Hour - Part 1 (Understanding the Message)

Have you ever felt so down, so low, that you just didn’t know if you could make it through another day?  Perhaps even the energy or motivation to just get out of bed in the morning escapes you. We all have found ourselves in troubling times at one time or another, but sometimes…the burdens we face can be almost unbearable.  Consider some of the common sources of agony that so many of us have faced:  loss of a job, discovering that we or someone close to us has a life-threatening illness, ending of a relationship, death of a loved one.  The list could go on and on, but these are some common traumas showing up so much in our lives now, and if not in our own lives, in the lives of others close to us.
 
We are in a time of transformation.  In order to evolve to higher planes of existence and vibration, we must release deeply
buried emotions that hold us back.  Challenges as deeply emotionally scarring as the ones previously listed can provoke feelings and emotional blocks that we have buried for decades, feelings and blocks that need to come to the surface to be released that we might evolve as individuals, and as the collective human race, to the next level.  Such challenges may not
necessarily be intended to heal old wounds; they may just be intended to stretch you further.  Only you can know for sure.  These traumatic experiences…are mirrors into your soul that you might look within and see what needs to be healed and/or stretched, in order to evolve to the next phase of your journey.  In essence these experiences are gifts, and while they certainly are not likely to feel like such, they come to you to induce growth.  And they only come to you…when you are ready.  The Universe never gives you more than what you can handle.  And so in this knowingness, realize that this too shall pass and you shall overcome once again.  Let’s talk about each of these 4 particular examples. This particular set addresses a broad spectrum of growth triggers that could be induced by many other examples of traumatic experiences not listed here.  There are many other examples and many other triggers.  We’ll address this set here just to get an idea and help us get started on our way.
 
(1) Loss of a job: A job can represent different things to different people.  It can be a source of survival (income needed to sustain the basic needs of life such as a home, clothing, food, etc.).  It can be a representation of our identity.  It can represent our independence of others, our self-esteem.  This list could go on as well, but the key here is, when we lose our job, we may actually be losing something deeper.  And the key is, what have we really lost?  Here begins your journey.  Here then is your mirror.  The situation can be unique for each and every person, so you really need to look at what your situation means to you, but allow me to give some examples here to share what I mean in terms of such a loss serving as an evolutionary growth opportunity.  If your job was the sole source of income for you and your family, one of the strongest emotions that’s likely to surface for you is fear, fear of the ability to survive. You might read that and say “duh”, but to many, loss of a job would not elicit fear.  If you were well-nurtured, consistently supported, and deeply loved your whole life, you would have those feelings so embedded within you that loss of a job would not trigger a threat to your well-being.  You would know that you simply would get another job or find some other source of income.  To someone who has been well-nurtured and supported their whole life, this is very easy to manifest.  If, however, you were neglected as a child either physically and/or emotionally, experienced repeated occurrences of abandonment by family, friends, romantic partners, your sense of feeling nurtured, supported, and loved is constantly at risk; it’s what you learned.  To lose a job then would bring these feelings immediately to the surface once again.  Because of your feelings of being unnurtured and unsupported, you may also find it extremely difficult to manifest a new job as your inner feelings and beliefs tell you that you are unsupported.  This then is an opportunity to heal your painful past and to end related, repeated patterns that have arisen in your life because of it.  If your job represented your identity, then to lose it causes you to suddenly have to question who you are and who you should be. Getting another job doing something different, or even doing the same thing but for a different employer can feel highly unsettling.  It’s not an exact replacement, and as such it forces an identity change.  For many people, a job is a just a job.  But if you have your identity attached to your job, losing your job means losing your identity.  Now you have to start over and create a new identity, a new you.  Who are you going to be, and will others accept this new you?  If this is what you are facing, you are being called upon to discover your authentic self…and to BECOME your authentic self.  Perhaps your next job will be just a job as it is to many, or perhaps it will be something that reflects who you are really about deep down inside. Either way can feel wonderfully freeing. If your job represented your independence of others and your self-esteem, then to lose it means that you lose all of that, and for most people in those particular circumstances, this brings up enormous shame.  And these are the emotions coming up for healing.  You may challenge this though in saying that, if you hadn’t lost the job, then you wouldn’t now have the shame to
heal.  But that’s the interesting part.  Not everyone feels shame when they lose a job.  If you are feeling shame, it’s because you have something deeper going on inside of you that does not serve your highest good.  The loss of a job can’t trigger shame, unless that shame already exists…or unless someone else will shame you for losing your job (which is likely why you had your self-esteem tied to the job in the first place).  Therein lies the healing, and it may go very deep.  Have you spent your life trying to win someone’s approval, trying to appease someone, trying to prove yourself?  Your job can be just a job if you choose, if you get your joy elsewhere and choose a job for the money and benefits, etc.  Or your job may be your joy, or all of the above.  It’s all good.  The bottom line is that it’s about YOU, not about what anybody else wants.  Even if others claim they want it for you, they really want it for themselves.  If they were really feeling you and wanting you to be happy, they wouldn’t care what you do for a living.
 
(2) Discovering that we or someone close to us has a life-threatening illness:  Illness often times reflects accumulation of emotional pain and suffering, anguish that has finally manifested itself into the physical in an extreme way.  It may also be giving us an opportunity to face our mortality and address fears of dying.  For many at this particular time, it is also giving us an opportunity to open even more to love.  If we have developed the illness ourselves, we may be discovering that life is indeed short, and how we’ve been spending our time is not how we want to spend the remainder of our life, however long that may be.  We may be looking for more ways to express our deepest love and receive honest, true love in return.  We may be looking for deeper, more meaningful, more lasting love.  We may be looking to give up a shallow existence for one of depth and meaning.  If someone we love has developed an illness, we may be discovering within ourselves how much we truly love that individual and have been taking him/her for granted.  We may begin opening to deeper levels of love, appreciation, and compassion.  We may re-prioritize our lives giving more focus to things that have more meaning.
 
(3) Ending of a relationship:  If you find yourself ending a long-term relationship at this time (the time leading up to the 2012 Winter Solstice and/or the time that follows it in the new energy), it most likely is because the two of you, as souls, are drifting apart to pursue conflicting destinies.  You were brought together for a reason; look to see what that might have been.  You may have helped each other through difficult times; you may have raised beautiful children together.  Just because it ends doesn’t mean it was a mistake to begin with.  Destinies don’t have to be identical to be compatible, but if you and your partner have conflicting goals and desires with where you are each headed at this time, you may find your relationship disintegrating without even realizing why. It may take months or years before you can look back and see the obvious reasons as to why you wouldn’t have been able to remain a compatible team.  Your souls may know when you’re drifting apart before your conscious minds figure it out, and so the deterioration of your relationship may be triggered on subconscious levels.  The healing here is about letting go and being okay with all the joy you shared. It’s about embracing who you are becoming and knowing that you can draw a new special someone to you who is going to be the perfect partner for you on your life’s journey.  You would want a truly compatible partner on your journey towards your destiny after all, wouldn’t you, someone who loves you deeply and who truly believes in you?  If you find yourself ending a short-term relationship at this time, look for the patterns across your relationships.  Do your relationships depict a history of trust issues, infidelity, abandonment, abuse (physical, emotional, or mental), fear of commitment?  Are you always trying to fix or save someone?  Do you go from relationship-to-relationship, and if so, what is that telling you?  Are your relationships few and far between, and if so, what is that telling you?  Do you give yourself time to heal and grow between relationships, or do you always “need” to have someone to feel safe and okay?  Do you start targeting your next relationship before leaving the one you’re in?  Do you jump quickly and/or unthinkingly into new relationships that don’t serve you, only to regret it shortly thereafter?  Do you take extraordinary amounts of time in between relationships and explain this away as being “too busy” to start a new relationship.  Look for your patterns.  Therein lies the opportunity for healing.  This is not a time for self-judgment; it’s a time for self-love.
 
(4) Death of a loved one:  Losing someone we love can bring up a rush of varying emotions.  We may have feelings of regret – regret for taking the person for granted, regret for not spending more time with them, regret for not visiting them more often, regret for not telling them how much we loved them.  The 7 layers of grief are well-documented in many wonderful books that you can find on-line and in stores.  You may find it healing and supportive to read about it.  Your experience…is very personal.  We are seeing an increase in the number of deaths at this time.  In the years preceding the 2012 Winter Solstice, many souls began exiting because they were not prepared to integrate the vibrational increase at the rapid rate at which it was coming.  Yet in the time immediately surrounding the solstice, the number has seemingly been extraordinarily high, this includes deaths both before and after the solstice, including both people and animals (particularly animals who are pets, family members).  The first thing to appreciate here is that any soul that could survive the vibrational increase THIS close to the solstice (either before or after) was NOT having trouble integrating the vibration.  They didn’t leave for themselves because the vibrational impact was too intolerable. Yet their exit at this time was not coincidental.  They left…for you.  I don’t mean for this to sound insensitive.  If you are feeling a deep loss at this time, know that the soul you are missing contracted with you that he/she would exit at this time to elicit a healing in you.  What feelings are coming up for you at this time?  Are you reminiscing about what you shared with your loved one?  Are you feeling regrets and sadness over what you missed, what you’ll never get to experience?  Take your time.  You don’t have to figure this out today.  If your loved one has left during this time around the solstice, you are most likely still grieving.  But when you are ready, consider the healing that your loved one is hoping to induce in you. Remember that we are in a time of transformation, of evolutionary growth.  Your loved one’s departure at this time was deliberately intended to serve that purpose.  By helping to bring your deepest of emotions to the surface, some for healing, some for expression, your loved one is intending to assist you.  Their departure was an act of deep love and compassion for you.  You may not feel it this way at this time, and that’s okay.  First and foremost, you need to process your grief.  What I offer here, for when you are ready, is an offer of consolation that this was not an accident; there is a higher purpose at stake, and it was for your benefit.  Souls exiting at this time are also“returning” to assist you in spirit.  Many are joining your team of angels and spirit guides to assist you on your continued journey, as promised in your contract.  You are embarking on a new journey in the Earth’s new vibration.  For many departing souls it was easier to assist you on your new journey from the spirit world than while in their
earthly bodies, and so this is why they crossed at this time.  Others are more informally available to love and support you as you need and require and as you call on them.  If it gives you comfort to talk with your loved one, either out loud or in your heart, know that he/she CAN hear you.  For them, it’s as though you are talking to them in person.  For us on this side, it’s a little harder, because we can’t all hear what they say to us.  But they can hear you, and they are loving and supporting you.  Be gentle with yourself during this time.  Allow yourself the time you need to feel and grieve in the way you need to.  I am so very sorry for the loss you are feeling.
 
When facing dark times, remember that your soul is giving you growth opportunities that you might evolve to even deeper states of joy and love.  The first part of the journey here is in understanding the message your soul is bringing to you in order to proceed with that growth and evolution.  What you may perceive on the surface as a financial or health crisis, etc., is most likely a spiritual crisis, especially if it is occurring “now” in this new energy surrounding the 2012 Winter Solstice.  To emerge as the new you in this new vibration, the old may have to be released.  The old vibration may not support who you are becoming in the new vibration.  And if this is the case, what you created in your life in the old vibration may begin to deteriorate and disappear from your life, if it has not already.

We’re all growing and transforming, and it can feel brutal at times. See what your dark time is telling you. The message is likely deeper than what you’re seeing on the surface.  The key and opportunity here is to grow through it, healing old wounds and ending old repeating patterns that do not serve us.
 
In dark times of uncertainty, we can lose faith -- faith in ourselves, faith in love, faith in the goodness of life.  If you are going through a crisis at this time, any crisis, any misery, then you are being called to evolve to the next level, and you are known to be capable of this evolution, else the crisis would’ve never arrived on your doorstep in the first place.  The crisis is ultimately nothing more than the journey to the completion of this next stage of your evolution.  What lies on the other side is worth it, though it is unlikely to feel that way while you’re in the middle of the crisis.  But let’s see if we can’t change even that.  Let’s talk next week about perspectives.  Once we begin to see the messages our crisis is trying to reveal to us, it makes it a little easier to see our situation from a brand new perspective, and in this new perspective, we can actually feel joy once again, even while in the perceived crisis!
 
Much love and blessings,

Raven