“When there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do you no harm.”
- African proverb
This idea of shining your true self to the world has been coming up a lot for me lately. I find it so fitting that this new moon expresses just that. It is a time where the masculine and feminine energies within you are amplified, therefore illuminating any imbalances or disconnect. It can be confrontational, leading to breakdown or breakthrough. Which in my experience are the same thing....:)
The quote above has also had a hold on me for a lately. I keep coming back to it time and time again. How can I meet that enemy within, understand her, make friends with her, and learn to love her?
I don’t believe there is a silencing of that part of myself, especially not through force. Like so many things, I feel that it is a meeting, an accepting, and a softening. If I resist it, then it's voice becomes louder and then resentment builds.
So these two ideas I've been dancing with merge together in an interesting way. In order to shine your true self, you must make peace with the enemy inside. We must illuminate and meet each shadow and each beam of light within us, constantly growing and evolving. Knowing ourselves, coming from a place of what is true for us at that moment, allows for everything to shine through. And it's not waiting until you know everything to express your true self, it is instead a never-ending journey of discovering and meeting, growing and evolving while being honest about where you are and showing up fully in whatever it is, however it looks.
By you shining your light, you give others permission to do the same.
So how do we accept this enemy within? How do we love them, make friends with them, until they are no longer our enemy?
Well, as I said before I know it's a meeting, a softening and an accepting but I also have been exploring the idea of resilience.
Becoming resilient to it, and to life. Not resilient as in enduring or persevering, but as the ability to grow and use my life’s experiences to expand. Letting myself stretch rather than be pulled thin. Allowing the growth to be what it is. Taking the grit with the grace. Exercising that muscle that says to the enemy within, "I hear you, thank you, I know that you are only looking out for me but in this moment I am choosing this." When that voice says, "You will fail." Being resilient at that moment to say, "Yeah, maybe I will, but I'm doing it anyway. And if I do fail, I will get back up again."
Letting the falls and fails be just as important and valuable as the highs and successes. Believing that they are just as important, just as valuable. Being resilient to whatever life throws at you and choosing what meaning you make from it.
The last thing I will say is to take care of yourself through it all. To make space and a place of sacredness within and around you to reflect, nourish, feed, and restore your body, mind, spirit, and heart.
One of the ways I am able to be resilient, open and conscious of my life is to take care of myself and listen. If I don’t let my back catch up to my front and meet myself where I am and just BE from time to time, then the storm will come and put me on my ass so I have no choice but to be. Whether it’s in the form of a physical illness or an emotional breakdown. If I don’t listen to myself, take the time to be, to reflect, to nourish and care for myself then my body/mind will demand that I listen.
So, in closing, be gentle with yourself. Meet your enemy within, get to know them, be compassionate towards them. Exercise your resilience muscles, trust yourself, and BE.
Best,
Aspen
August 2nd 2019