fear

“Everything’s going pretty well in my life, but I feel **so much anger! **” “I can’t get past how much anger I feel! I want to feel better, but I am stuck.” “How can I **not** be angry, have you seen what’s going on in the world?” “Being angry is a negative emotion and now is not the time to be negative.”

Feedback

The feedback from “Social Justice, Heart-Work, and Evolution. Part 1, of 2” had 1 of 3 flavors, generally speaking.

Last night was the first night in awhile where it was cool enough to keep my bedroom door open. Delight!

And!

It also led to me waking up quite a bit during the night. This led to  experientially connecting with a question that came up in a recent gathering:

What can I do when waking up in the middle of the night?

Nearly ten years ago, my life fell apart suddenly and catastrophically. I ceased to be able to function in the outside world, was physically ill and was engulfed by feelings, sensations and memories that—up until then—I’d been successfully avoiding or suppressing. Fortunately, I recognized that this was far more than a nervous breakdown. It was the beginning of a long dark night of the soul. Very early on I realised that, over the years, I had become disconnected from my deeper self. My soul was now calling me home and I was willing (if totally ill-prepared) to heed its call.

Looking back, I recognise that I was anxious from a very young age, but the extent of the anxiety didn’t become apparent until I was in my late twenties and started having panic attacks. A close friend of mine had dropped dead in tragic circumstances a few days before they started, and very soon I found myself facing the suppressed horror and grief of a previous loss, the death of my best friend in an accident when we were eighteen.

During the nineteenth century, phantasmagoria – or theatrical horror shows – became a popular attraction throughout Britain, Europe and the United States. The creators used lighting, projectors, smoke, sound effects and electric shocks to conjure all manner of apparitions and frighten audiences. Sequences of terrifying images played on screens and theatres were often decorated accordingly. There were even rumours of patrons being drugged.