Embracing Our Darkness

The most difficult challenge, our most vile villain, we will ever face is our own darkness, our own souls.

Will we cower and be driven mad, unable to accept our propensity for evil? Or will we arise, overcome, and accept ourselves for who we are?

Will we love ourselves, not solely in spite of, but also including our darkness?

Embracing one’s darkness is accepting your flaws, weaknesses, wrongdoings, etc. which have caused you and others pain.

Does this acceptance mean we allow ourselves to continue inflicting such pain? Do we continue indulging our vanities and selfishness?

No.

If we truly love ourselves, we embrace our darkness to bring it into a place of vulnerability, of exposure to let in the Light. Only then can we be made whole, complete.

It is there we learn how to overcome our evil inclinations and instead learn to do the good we desire, of how to show deference to the other instead of taking everything for ourselves.

It is how we become the Self we always dreamed of being.

Learning to love myself — including, especially my darkness — can either break or make me. It will either drive me mad, or strengthen me into an impenetrable force. Only I must first believe in myself.

But I cannot do it alone.