by Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D.
A paradox is a seemingly self-contradictory statement or situation that is in fact often true. The paradox of mourning we will consider together in this article might, at first glance, seem self-contradictory, but as I will reveal, it is actually a forgotten Truth with a capital T. It’s a Truth we must rediscover because it is essential to healing in the aftermath of significant loss.
The International Dark-Sky Association is a nonprofit “fighting to preserve the night.” Recognizing that human-produced light creates “light pollution” that diminishes our view of the stars, disrupts our circadian rhythms as well as ecosystems, and wastes significant amounts of energy, the association seeks to reserve the use of artificial lighting at night to only what is truly necessary.
As you read about Paradox 2, I would like you to remember this mantra of “fighting to preserve the night.” During our times of grief, we are also well served to fight to honor and preserve the sanctity and restorative powers of the dark night of the soul.
The dark night of the soul
One way in which we used to honor the need to make friends with the darkness of grief was to observe a period of mourning. During this time—whose length and detailed customs varied by era, religion, and culture as well as by each mourner’s specific relationship to the person who died—mourners essentially withdrew from society. When they did venture out into the community, they wore clothing that outwardly represented their internal reality.
Such mourning “rules” or customs were a way of acknowledging loss and honoring the need for a period of darkness. They were superficial signs of a deeply profound, spiritual crisis. In fact, a significant loss plunges you into what C.S. Lewis, Eckhart Tolle, and various Christian mystics have called “the dark night of the soul.”
After the death of someone loved, the dark night of the soul can be a long and very black night indeed. If you are struggling after a significant loss of any kind, you are probably inhabiting that long, dark night. It is uncomfortable and scary. It hurts. Yet if you allow yourself to sit still in the blackness without trying to fight it, deny it, or run away from it, you will find that it has something to teach you.
The so-called dark emotions
Have you ever noticed that we tend to equate the dark with all things evil and bad, while light represents goodness and purity? Darkness is night, ghosts, caves, bats, devils, and vampires. Darkness is also ignorance and void. And when we feel “dark” emotions, we mean that we feel sadness, emptiness, loss, depression, despair, shame, and fear. Yes, the dark emotions are painful and challenging to experience. But are they really “bad”? No, they are not.
Feelings are not intrinsically good or bad—they simply are. They arise in us in response to what we are seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling in any given moment. They also emanate more abstractly, from our thoughts. Feelings are essentially the bodily response to the existential experience of living and being.
And so we must turn to the dark emotions of grief. We must acknowledge them and allow ourselves to feel them. In fact, I often say that we must befriend our dark emotions. Befriending pain is hard. It’s true that it is easier to avoid, repress, or deny the pain of grief than it is to embrace it, yet it is in befriending our pain that we learn from it and unlock our capacity be transformed by it.
The pain of the dark night of the soul can seem intolerable, and yet the only way to emerge into the light of a new morning is to first experience the night. As a wise person once observed, “Darkness is the chair upon which light sits.”
The necessity of grief
Yes, when you are grieving, it is necessary to feel sadness and other so-called dark emotions. But why is it necessary? Why does emotional pain have to exist at all? Couldn’t we just move from loss to shock to acceptance without all that pain in the middle?
The answer is that sadness plays an essential role. It forces us to regroup—physically, cognitively, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. When we are sad, we instinctively turn inward. We withdraw. We slow down. It’s as if our soul presses the pause button and says, “Whoa, whoa, whoaaa. Time out. I need to acknowledge what’s happened here and really consider what I want to do next.”
In fact, many of the acute symptoms of grief force us to slow down. We experience “anhedonia,” which means the inability to find pleasure in activities that we used to enjoy. In other words, we don’t feel like doing anything. We also tend to feel tired and sluggish. We are listless emotionally as well as physically. This is called “the lethargy of grief.”
Stillness allows for the transition from “soul work” to “spirit work.” According to the groundbreaking thinking of Carl Jung, “soul work” is the downward movement of the psyche. It is the willingness to connect with what is dark, deep, and not necessarily pleasant. “Spirit work,” on the other hand, involves the upward, ascending movement of the psyche. It is during spirit work that you find renewed meaning and joy in life.
Soul work comes before spirit work. The spirit cannot ascend until the soul first descends. The withdrawal, slowing down, and stillness of the dark emotions create the conditions necessary for soul work.
The darkness of liminal space
Grief lives in liminal space. “Limina” is the Latin word for threshold, the space betwixt and between. When you are in liminal space—or limbo—you are not busily and unthinkingly going about your daily life. Neither are you living from a place of assuredness about your relationships and beliefs. Instead, you are unsettled. Both your automatic daily routine and your core beliefs have been shaken, forcing you to reconsider who you are, why you’re here, and what life means.
Yes, it’s uncomfortable being in liminal space, but that’s where grief takes you. Without grief, you wouldn’t go there. But it is only in liminal space that you can reconstruct your shattered worldview and reemerge as the transformed you that is ready to live and love fully again.
The underworld of your grief
Most of us know we harbor darkness inside of us. We secretly feel not only pain and fear but also hate, cruelty, lust, and other emotions we judge as shameful. We have thought and done things that we hope no one else ever learns of. Often parts of our grief, too, inhabit this world of shameful, hidden thoughts and feelings.
In Greek mythology, Persephone becomes the queen of the underworld. It is not a throne she sought after, however. Living happily on earth with her family, she is kidnapped by the god of the underworld, Hades, and, after some trickery and back-and-forth, is forced to remain there with him six months of every year. From then on, Persephone embodies the duality of winter/summer, evil/good, darkness/light.
All of us are Persephones, really. The trick is in awakening ourselves to the reality that our underworlds are not shameful. Rather, they are simply pieces of the complex puzzle called being human.
The music of the night
I think that sometimes insomnia, like our dark emotions, has something to teach us. Wakefulness during the dark hours offers us quieter, more mysterious opportunities for reflection than those we may encounter during the day.
Of course, I understand that the dark hours can also conjure our darkest fears. When we awake in the middle of the night, we may lie in bed ruminating over what we have lost as well as our fears for the future. Even if someone else is sleeping nearby, we may feel deeply alone.
If you experience such nighttime despair, try to remember that this is an opportunity to embrace your pain. It is a normal and necessary part of your journey. Consider giving it movement by getting up and out of bed for a while. Keep the lights off or low and pace as you think. Step outside into the moonlight and breathe the night air. Or try writing down your nighttime thoughts and feelings in a journal.
The light of empathy in the darkness
When people are sympathetic to you, they are noticing and feeling concern for your circumstances, usually at a distance. They are “feeling sorry” for you. They are feeling “pity” for you. They may be offering a simple solution, platitude, or distraction. Sympathy is “feeling for” someone else.
Empathy, on the other hand, is about making an emotional connection. It is a more active process—one in which the listener tries to understand and feel your experience from the inside out. The listener is not judging you or your thoughts and feelings. She is not offering simple solutions. Instead, she is making herself vulnerable to your thoughts, feelings, and circumstances by looking for connections to similar thoughts, feelings, and circumstances inside her. She is being present and allowing herself to be taught by you. Empathy is “feeling with” someone else.
In your time of darkness, the loyal empathy of just one other human being can be the candle you need to find your way through to healing.
Entering the light
Paradox 2 says that you must make friends with the darkness before you can enter the light. But what is the light? There really is no set destination on the journey through grief. The light of healing in grief is not exactly like the light at the end of a tunnel. Reconciliation is the goal, but it is not a fixed end point or perfect state of bliss. At least here on Earth, bittersweet is as sweet as it gets.
The Chinese yin-yang symbol represents the duality of many experiences in life. The shape of the symbol is a perfect circle—in other words, a unified whole. But comprising the circle are two comma shapes—one black (the yin) and one white (the yang). And within each comma shape is a dot of the opposite color.
The symbol is a visual reminder that everything is comprised of both darkness and light. Yet the darkness and the light are not opposing forces. Rather, they are complementary twins that only together form a whole. What’s more, the drop of white in the black yin and the drop of black in the white yang remind us that nothing is purely dark or light, good or bad. Instead, life is made up of people, places, actions, things, and experiences that are mixtures of both.
And so, think of the light as the thoughts and feelings you want to experience more of. Hope. Gratitude. Happiness. Joy. Love. Peace. The more you make friends with the darkness, the more your capacity for these thoughts and feelings will grow.
About the Author
Dr. Alan D. Wolfelt is a noted author, educator and practicing grief counselor. Heserves as Director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition in Fort Collins,Colorado and presents dozens of grief-related workshops each year across North America.Among his books are Healing Your Grieving Heart: 100 Practical Ideas and The HealingYour Grieving Heart Journal for Teens. For more information, write or call The Centerfor Loss and Life Transition, 3735 Broken Bow Road, Fort Collins, Colorado 80526, (970) 226-6050 or visit their website, www.centerforloss.com.
Copyright 2007-2020, Center for Loss and Life Transition
FAQs
How to make friends with the dark quote? ›
I can live life safely and without peril in a fictional universe.” “You have to make friends with the dark.” “Sometimes you're so hungry, so thirsty for something to fill you up, you've craved it for so long, but when you finally have it, it hurts going down. It's not a medicine for what ails you.
How to Make Friends with the Dark Book Summary? ›Sixteen-year-old Tiger Tolliver never wanted to learn how to make friends with the dark. But that's what happens when her mom dies unexpectedly and her ensuing grief becomes overwhelming. “If you looked at yourself in a mirror right now, could you see pieces of bone close to the surface?” Tiger wonders.
What happens at the end of How to Make Friends with the Dark? ›As conclusions go, the book's ending is rather trite—Tiger finally finds her happy ending, reuniting with Shayna settling into a routine of grief support group meetings at Eugene Field. This presentation of happiness comes across as rather simplistic contrived when juxtaposed to the dark twists that came before.
What is the most famous line from friends? ›- “Well, maybe I don't need your money. Wait, wait, I said maybe!”
- “We were on a break!”
- “See? He's her lobster.”
- “Joey doesn't share food!”
- “Hi, I'm Chandler. ...
- “I wish I could, but I don't want to.”
- “Seven!”
- “Pivot!”
Quote by Jesmyn Ward: “What's done in the dark always comes to the light.”
What is the summary of the poem we have been friends together? ›This three-stanza poem details the speaker's attempt to mend a rift in a long-standing friendship. The speaker addresses the friend, going over various stages in their lives. The first stanza concentrates on the pair's early friendship in childhood while the second stanza focuses on the amusing times they have had.
What is the moral of the story face in the dark? ›Answer. The story actually has no moral. It only gives an idea of the supernatural content in the story written . It is the way Ruskin Bond thought of horror.
What is the poem the dark about? ›Answer: The poem refers to the plight of the darkness itself while people emphasize on what they feel within themselves while being in it. It accentuates the fact that it's not the fault of the darkness if people are scared of it out of the mere fear of the unknown that may exist within.
Does How to Make Friends with the Dark have a happy ending? ›Kathleen Glasgow surprised me and shocked me with Girl in Pieces, and it is no different here. So needless to say (and true to what I now consider Kathleen Glasgow's style), there is no happy ending here either... The Blurb: Here is what happens when your mother dies.
What happens at the end of we are all the same in the dark? ›Angel finds Odette's personal case notes, and realizes that 70×7 is from a bible verse. She goes to Odette's old partner Rusty with the information from the book, but refuses to tell him how she knows what she does. Angel sneaks back into Odette and Finn's house to finish reading the book.
What happens at the end of a meeting in the dark? ›
Wamuhu struggles and gasps for air as he strangles her, and only after she collapses, dead, does he come to his senses and realize that he's murdered Wamuhu—and their unborn child. The final line of the story is: “…he had created then killed.”
Does How to Make Friends with the Dark have self-harm? ›After the death of her mother, Tiger decides to exclusively wear the dress her mom had bought her for an upcoming school dance. She refuses to wear anything else until eventually the dress becomes smelly and begins to fall apart. Other ways she finds to cope is through self-harm and unhealthy eating habits.
Is how do you make friends with the dark real? ›It isn't based on a true story, but grief over losing my mother and sister played a part in how I wrote the book.
Is there self-harm in How to Make Friends with the Dark? ›The main theme is grief, with some mention of self harm, suicide (neither of these are present as a discriptive story-line) and also neglect. I'm okay with reading about any of these story-lines, however within the first fifty pages i almost DNF'd How To Make Friends because it was just too sad for me.
What is a real best friend quote? ›- “Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer.” — ...
- “A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.” — ...
- “It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.” — ...
- “Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.” —
“You have three types of friends in life: Friends for a reason, friends for a season, and friends for a lifetime.”
What's a real friend quote? ›“A good friend is like a four-leaf clover: hard to find and lucky to have.” “There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends.” "True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable." "Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain.
What does what happens in the dark always come to light mean? ›Some things are revealed right away and other things take time.
What does God say about darkness and light? ›“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The Good News: Regardless of how bad things may seem or how bad things could get, there's always hope. “The LORD is my light and my salvation — whom shall I fear?
What is the quote about darkness and light? ›“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
What is the moral of the story the two friends? ›
The moral of the story of Two Friends is that war is futile. If a city or country is doomed for takeover, any decision will still result in the death of oneself or the death of others.
What is the meaning of the story two friends? ›The story is set in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, when the city lay under siege. The story examines French bravery, German stereotypes and, unusually for Maupassant, discusses the nature and justification of war in the form of a conversation between the two protagonists.
What is the theme of the poem on friendship? ›The poem “On Friendship” is the 19th piece of work from The Prophet which is about the joys of friendship ad how friendship ought to be. Friends are one of the most important blessings in ones life, as their presence brings joy to ones heart and satisfies all of our needs.
What is the main theme of the story what is the message? ›The term theme can be defined as the underlying meaning of a story. It is the message the writer is trying to convey through the story. Often the theme of a story is a broad message about life. The theme of a story is important because a story's theme is part of the reason why the author wrote the story.
What is the main idea or moral of the story? ›Theme is the main or central idea in a literary work. It is the unifying element of a story.
What type of story is face in the dark? ›A Face in the Dark by Ruskin Bond is a very popular short story that has been passed on from one generation to another. It falls in the purview of mystery and suspense genre.
What is the the theme of the poem? ›The theme of a poem is the message an author wants to communicate through the piece. The theme differs from the main idea because the main idea describes what the text is mostly about.
What are the good points about the dark? ›- Darkness is vital. Darkness is vital to humans, animals and plants. ...
- You sleep better. ...
- Animals find food at night. ...
- Your body clock keeps in time. ...
- Plants anticipate the arrival of winter. ...
- Darkness protects the environment.
The Dark Poets are an industrial music group who originally rose to prominence with their soundtrack for Alex Chandon's cult horror movie Cradle of Fear. The Cradle of Fear soundtrack was released by Silvascreen Records in the UK and Silva America in 2001 (SSD 1148.)
Does Dark has a good ending? ›The ending of the DARK series shows us that Jonas and Martha successfully stop Marek from using that broken bridge in 1971 in the Origin World. This results in him and his family not dying.
Why is the ending of friends so sad? ›
Ultimately, the Friends finale is sad because it's about change. It reminds us that nothing ever stays the same. It's especially poignant because Friends is a show about how it feels to be young: Full of angst and anticipation, but also carefree and confident that everything will somehow work out.
Who is left at the end of dark? ›Without Jonas and Martha, virtually all of the interconnected characters in "Dark" also disappeared. That's why the final scene includes just six key people: Katharina Albers, Hannah Krüger, Torben Wöller, Bernadette Wöller, Peter Doppler, and Regina Tiedemann.
Where is we are all the same in the dark set? ›Her latest psychological thriller, WE ARE ALL THE SAME IN THE DARK, has received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which described her work as "exceptional." All of her books, including PLAYING DEAD and LIE STILL, are set in the moody, diverse landscape of Texas and together they have been published in more than ...
How does the half sister end? ›The Ending:
The book ends with Rose's trial, which determines that Rose killed Jess's mom because her DNA was found under her fingernails and no one else was present.
JH: This thriller is not inspired by a real case, but I definitely wanted the novel to be haunted by that gritty true crime feeling.
What you see in the dark summary? ›Set in 1950's small-town America, What You See in the Dark is the story of an unlikely romance between Teresa and Dan. She is a Mexican loner, abandoned by her mother years ago and now working in a shoe shop. He is the most desireable young man in town, handsome, independent, gallant.
What is the theme of a meeting in the dark? ›Fear. By accessing each of the character's internal experiences through his third person narrator, the author is able to expound the all-consuming nature of fear, whether emotional or religious. At the start of "A Meeting in the Dark," the author defines fear by John's fear of his father.
What was the major conflict in meeting in the dark? ›The conflict between his religion and the tribal religion arose within him. He was the son of a Calvanistic Clergy man, and was educated in the Calvanistic Mission School. So he had a cultural conflict of praying to the Gods of the tribe.
How do I get rid of evil friends? ›- Accept reality. ...
- Be clear with your intentions. ...
- Identify your role in the relationship. ...
- Choose a way to end it. ...
- Forgive. ...
- Give yourself time to grieve.
Quitting them feels like a personal failure.
And that makes it so much harder if that same friend of 15 years feels like an emotional leech every time you meet up and you want out so, so bad. "When [you] become close friends with another person, [you] suspend the possibility that the friendship will ever end," says Dr.
How do I make friends with the Dark Ages? ›
Themes: Grief, foster care, depression, death, mother-daughter relationships, bullying, high school, friendship, home, living, sisters, family. Reading age guide: Ages 14 and up. Advisory: Drug references. References to self-harm and suicidal thoughts.
How to Make Friends with the Dark best quotes? ›I can live life safely and without peril in a fictional universe.” “You have to make friends with the dark.” “Sometimes you're so hungry, so thirsty for something to fill you up, you've craved it for so long, but when you finally have it, it hurts going down. It's not a medicine for what ails you.
What are true friends made of? ›A true friend is not only honest about themselves, but they are also honest about you. They are able to have difficult conversations in telling you things that sometimes you may not be eager to hear. The key is that they do it in love and with grace. They don't tear you down.
How do you make real and deep friends? ›- Value yourself. Be confident and happy being you.
- Spend time with others. Accept them as they are, be open, value their feelings and opinions.
- Care about what others care about. ...
- Be there when your friend needs you. ...
- Be kind.
How to Make Friends with the Dark is a gorgeously nuanced meditation on grief and family, and the incredible love that can pull you through the darkest of times. ' 'Kathleen Glasgow is the rare type of skilled storyteller that knows you have to hurt your characters before putting them back together.
What is a famous black quote? ›“Darkness can not drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
What are the darkest quotes? ›“Let the darkest times reveal the brightest you!” “Remember, sometimes those of us who hit the darkest places are the same ones who shine the brightest light.” “Enlightenment can come from the darkest places.” “Hope always comes in the darkest part before the dawn.”
When did Helen Keller say I would rather walk with a friend in the dark than alone in the light? ›Dear Quote Investigator: Helen Keller was once asked about the price she would pay to gain the sense of sight. Her reported response was thoughtful and poignant: I would rather walk with a friend in the dark than walk alone in the light.
Is the friendship paradox real? ›In spite of its apparently paradoxical nature, the phenomenon is real, and can be explained as a consequence of the general mathematical properties of social networks.
What are 2 famous quotes? ›- The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. - ...
- The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. - ...
- Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. ...
- If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor. -
What are the most powerful quotes of all time? ›
- “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” — Henry Ford.
- “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” — Confucius.
- “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” — Wayne Dyer.
- “ May the Force be with you.” - Star Wars, 1977.
- “ There's no place like home.” - The Wizard of Oz, 1939.
- “ I'm the king of the world!” - ...
- “ Carpe diem. ...
- “ Elementary, my dear Watson.” - ...
- “ It's alive! ...
- “ My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. ...
- “ I'll be back.” -
The Kármán line is the point where outer space technically starts. It's about 62 miles above sea level. Everything above it is space, everything below it, not space. it's important to have for the purposes of space treaties, aerospace record keeping, and billionaires flying their rockets into space.
What is the scariest quote? ›“No one escapes from life alive.” “Maybe all the schemes of the devil were nothing compared to what man could think up.” “The monsters that rose from the dead, they are nothing compared to the ones we carry in our hearts.” “Listen to them, the children of the night.
What is the secret to life quote? ›“The secret to life is that its all a game.” “The greatest discovery in life is the knowledge of the Will of GOD.” “Choose wisely that which you dare to believe; for once you believe it, you begin to live it.” “In life if you have not done enough to create yourself, you will never be able to find yourself.”
What does it mean to say that walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light? ›It is so important to have true friends in your life, not only to share the good times with you, but you need them even more when you are going through tough times, to guide you through the darkness, help you towards the light.
What happens in the dark will always come to light meaning? ›You cannot hide injustice. It will surface sooner than later. What is done in the dark in the countryside or in the closet will eventually come to light.
What does Helen Keller mean when she says until we have looked into darkness we Cannot know what a divine thing vision is? ›What do you think Keller means when she writes, "until we have looked into darkness, we cannot know what a divine thing vision is"? ( Paragraph 4) She means with out falling or going into a slump, we can't achieve of reach any goals. She isn't using her disability as an disadvantage, and using it as advantage.
What are the 3 C's in friendship? ›A different way of categorizing friendship is by applying “The Three C's”. There are three basic types of people with whom you interact: Constituents, Comrades, and Confidants.
What are the 3 rules of friendship? ›The 3 Rules of Real Friendships
Somebody is a stable and reliable presence in your life. Two, it needs to be a positive relationship, so it makes you feel good. The third is that it's cooperative and there is some form of reciprocity and give-and-take. It's about your ability to be there for your friends.