Transcribed from my video on youtube.com/askvictoria
A Viewer wrote in regarding repetitive dysfunctional behaviour within her group of friends. Her dark side was making its presence known. Even though she is tempted to avoid this inner, painful exploration, it is in this darkness that lies most of the learning and growing.
Today’s topic is “Embracing the Darkness Within.” I have a client who comes in and complains bitterly about the dysfunctional group of friends that she’s been a member of since high school. There’s one particular person in this group who’s a charming, effusive individual, but has a nasty, embittered, judgmental side to him, and she is frequently the object of his judgment and cold shoulder, and she feels on a roller coaster ride as a result of this, and doesn’t understand why she’s looking for his approval constantly. She’s a very smart, intelligent person, but finds herself suffering, feeling belittled, frozen out by this person, and in a dark place, which elicits a dysfunctional want for approval from someone she doesn’t really like. She doesn’t really understand that, so she engages in a lot of, “He’s a jerk. He’s no good,” judging and complaining about him. In a session, finally we started to understand that all of this complaining about him, projecting onto him, was stopping her from looking within and analyzing her own dark side about this. The looking without prevented her from looking within to become conscious of this darkness that was lying in the murky waters of unconsciousness. Once we got out of him and into her, and opened up these dark, murky waters and started shining a light on them, this unconscious, unaware part of her started making its presence known, and basically informed her about what was operating within her. This process led us to her interesting understanding that seeking approval from people she doesn’t like comes from parental issues, a whole bunch of important understandings about the way her character operates: mainly, her deep self-esteem issues, deep insecurities that she thought she had handled, but clearly had some work to do. She was not aware, however, because she was constantly looking without, saying, “He’s wrong.” Not to say he was right, being so judgmental, but the nuggets of gold were not in the judgment of him, but in having her look within, asking, “What is this dark part of me trying to tell me?” Because every time it showed up in these social situations, she was embittered by it, asking, “Why does this keep coming up? Why is he doing this to me?” It became a wasted bit of energy that needed to be turned inward, saying, “This behaviour inside me, of wanting his approval and favour, even though I don’t really like him, is an internal process that needs to be analyzed.”
(4:10) The growth, development, and true evolution in this client occurred when she stopped looking at him, started to look at the dark side within and embraced it as a real opportunity to ask, “Who am I really? What am I doing here? Why do I keep going here?” rather than, “Why does this person keep doing this to me?” That’s what I’m asking you to do, as you hear this story: embrace the darkness within, because the darkness has the most opportunity for growth and learning. Have a great day!
