Hiding the Darkness that Actually Shines

"I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that."

— Robin Williams

The above quote resonates to an absolute symphony with me. For most of my life, my desire has been to make other people happy, to reveal joy and warmth to lives that have yet to see Unconditional Love in the world. I treasure this aspect of myself, a gift from God that can create waves from the bubbly water that is myself. However, just like with anything good, it has the potential to become harmful when not taken care of.

I am an extrovert with a high sensitivity to external stimulation, making me more of an introvert on the inside, and at times that can be rather hard to deal with and understand. I can feel emotionally and physically exhausted, yet still feel the need to be present. Over the years I have become very good at hiding the internal depth of sadness in order to be a joyful presence in the outside world. I am also a four on the enneagram, which has always allowed me to feel depths of emotion and be okay with it in myself and in others. However, I don't want my personal sadness to encompass another person, but rather my sadness to propel to love other sad and hurting people. This is a good thing, however that pain may never leave if I cannot speak to it with others. The past eight months or so have been an internal jarring, and I haven't been able to speak to those to even the closest loved ones.

To say that I have broken out of this pattern would be an outright lie (and I absolutely despise lying). I've hurt people I care about by not trying to hurt them, trying to be some sort of sacrificial lamb. Y'all, if any of you do this as well, it is simply unhealthy and will not bring you actual joy. Robin Williams is a perfect example of this: funny, exuberant and full of life to others, but hurting and alone on the inside.

When I started to feel my body becoming less loving towards itself, I ventured back into contemplative practices. These have always spoken to me, yet I never took the deep dive into it. A friend of mine helped point me further towards contemplation, in a way that no one has allowed me to see before. It's scary if I am being honest, but I'm not one to shy away from a challenge ;). Getting into my internal self has revealed traumas that I didn't know were actually there still. When I was about 13 until I graduated high school, I was bullied immensely. Bullying seems like too light of a word to describe it now, as I realize it was emotional abuse of a person they didn't really know. What I thought had left returned, and joined in with a chorus of new wounds that I didn't deal with from my life in Chicago. The depth that I feel towards injustices is encapsulating; when I am amongst struggle, I can feel it so deeply that I am moved to sobbing and heaving (but I like it that way). However, I haven't shared these experiences and emotions from them with people I trust, and I haven't been able to process them because of that. As much as an internal processor as I am, it is an absolute necessity to share them without judgement and critique to another I feel safe with. That's something we all need.

One particular experience that's been on my mind was that of a black man experiencing homelessness in North Lawndale, one that in conjunction with (formerly) living as a volunteer in a transitional housing ministry, really started to get to my insides. In short, I saw him regularly at a Taco Bell, sitting alone and visibly hungry and hurting. One day I bought him a meal and sat with him as we chatted a bit. A white police officer came in, spoke with two other white employees who called, and then berated the man, completely dehumanizing him and using physical force. This man was just sitting there, eating. The officer then looked at me with care in his eyes and speaking nicely, asking if I was okay and saying I was nice to help him but to not do it again. It was a 180 degree difference as to who was treated humanely. Somehow, I was in danger as a white woman eating with a black man experiencing homelessness. As the officer was acting this way towards him, I looked at his partner straight in the eye, communicating I knew exactly what her partner was doing. She couldn't look at me. She knew — this was a white man thinking he had the power to dehumanize a black man.

The centering prayer practice began to reveal the false ideas of myself, and is continuing to do so. Maybe, just maybe, people do want more from me than my sunshine and rainbows. That the darkness I carry in tension can be just as loving as the sun. It is like a thunderstorm while the sun is shining—this glimmer of hope that I somehow feel even when I want to blow that light out and never see it again. I can't get rid of it.

I am frustrated with God right now. I am frustrated yet I feel such overwhelming love for Her I cannot help but get closer in the midst. It all hurts. Divine therapy hurts. And that's all okay.