Let The Darkness Do Its Job...

Today earmarks the darkest, and longest day of the year welcoming the cold and dreary days of winter...and yet…consider this post from Eric Klein.

“The solstice is a turning point in the cycle of the year. In the silent, stillness of the deepest night – light is born. And the days begin to grow longer.

This birth of light is a symbol of the potential within each of us to find purpose, meaning, direction, and joy in life – particularly when things seem dark.

The winter solstice is a reminder that things always go dark – sooner or later. Darkness is not a mistake. It’s part of the natural cycle of growth and renewal. Every career has its winter solstice times – when there’s more darkness than light.

Few projects or creative endeavors follow a straight ahead path from concept to completion (despite planning a nice neat timeline.) The life cycle of creativity is a cycle – with ups and downs. Periods of light and periods of darkness.

The winter solstice is a reminder. We need to learn how to embrace and work constructively with the darkness. How do you know you’re in a winter solstice phase in your work or life?

You know you’re in a winter solstice phase when:

• The beliefs, attitudes, structures, and goals that fueled your past success stop working.
• The harder you push the slower you go.
• The self that you’ve been identified no longer fits who you need to be.

A winter solstice phase comes whenever it’s time to let go of ways of thinking and methods of working that no longer serve.

It’s time to let go.

During a winter solstice phase, your task is to empty your self, without knowing how you will be re-formed or what your vision for the next turn of the cycle will look like. It’s a time for not being sure. Not knowing.

Certainty and knowing precisely what to do are qualities of day light – brilliant sunshine. Not knowing is a quality of the dark. How can you move ahead when you don’t know what’s right and the old ways no longer work. This takes trust. Trust that only by letting go of old forms, can you make space for something new to be born. Trust in the darkness – recognizing that “those who dwell in darkness shall see the light. ”Trust that the old structures of selfhood need to be dismantled because to hold yourself (or the team, the project, the relationship) together at this point is to fight with your own destiny.

The way forward comes through letting go and surrender.

At the winter solstice, you shed the layers of thought, belief, and habit. You can’t make this shedding happen. You can’t power through or visualize your way out. Now is not the time for action but for stillness.

As you let go and release the old identity and way of being, the stillness deepens. It’s in this stillness that you can re-connect with that which is deepest within you. It’s the birth of light that starts as just a flicker. For it to grow, you can’t jump into action too quickly. You need to tend the emerging light – like you would care for a tender plant that’s just broken through the earth.

Light emerges from the silence.And as it emerges, you are infused with a new sense of what matters most. Your values take on new meaning and significance. Your sense of purpose feels real again.You’re ready to begin a new cycle of action.Even if the outer forms of your work and life appear hardly to change – you are a different person. And you bring a new vision to all that you do.

But, first you need to spend some time letting the darkness do its work.

• What is it time to let go of? 
• What or who can support you through the period of uncertainty and not-knowing? 
• How can you make time for silence and stillness?” 

Hmmmm...certainly appears this is a self-serving post...hope I’m smart enough to heed my own advice...Time to let go...Be good to yourself...Merry Christmas...