Darkness

Lauren Zander: Ode To Your Dark Side

Published 2012-05-03T14:00:31+00:000000003131201205 | By Doc Hollywood

Guess what? You have a dark side. Everyone has a dark side. And that dark side is talking to you and filling your head with nasty, mean, dark thoughts on a daily basis. Are you surprised? Most people are.

Whenever I mention this to clients, I get the same response, “Huh? Whatta you mean? Me? Dark side?” Well, I’m here to tell you that you do have a dark side and it’s powerful. It will stop you in your life unless you acknowledge it, put language to it and ultimately laugh at it.

What exactly is your dark side? It is the voice of “the Seven Deadly Sins” we’ve all heard of, or that little devil who sits on your shoulder. It says mean, horrible things to you about yourself and other people that you would never say out loud, because you would be ashamed, embarrassed or afraid you’d get in trouble. What’s actually dangerous is that these thoughts fly around in your head as if they were the truth, when you actually don’t even know if you agree or believe them.

Most people don’t want to acknowledge this darkness, so instead they pretend it doesn’t exist. I promise you, you’ve met your dark side and heard it speak. When you walk down the street and say mean things in your head about people walking past, calling them fat, ugly, lame, stupid or whatever pops into your head, that is your dark side at work. Part of you snickers at those mean thoughts and part of you recognizes that they are dark and twisted. Instead of owning dark thoughts, most people hide them, which ultimately gives their dark side all the power. Until you expose it, understand it and own it, your dark side will own YOU.

Your dark side is also the voice that keeps your vices going. It tells you to have another drink, smoke the cigarette and play another hand of Black Jack. It’s the voice that has you go underground and hide any behavior of which you’re ashamed, like secretly eating a box of cookies in the middle of the night or pretending to be working when you’re actually watching porn. Your dark side likes to stay hidden, but owning and exposing your dark side releases the power it holds over you.

Steps to Owning Your Dark Side

1) Admit it.
You have a dark side. Acknowledge it and say it out loud. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone has one.

2) Listen to it.
Pay attention to your dark side. What mean things does it say about you? What mean things does it say about other people?

3) Understand it.
How does your dark side work? How does it talk to you? What does it want you to do? Smoke? Party? Overeat? How do you let it get away with things? How do you let it run your life? Know your dark side.

4) Share it.
Tell people about your dark side. It’s normal. Everyone has their own version. Stop hiding it. Expose it. Once you share it with people, it stops having power over you. In sharing, you’ll not only find out you’re not alone, but you’ll also have a good laugh with someone about theirs, too!

5) Laugh at it.
Have a sense of humor about your dark side. Make fun of it. When you bring humor to your dark side, it isn’t dark anymore.

6) Nickname it.
Give your dark side a funny nickname. (ie: Mean Charley, Sassy Susan, Igor, Nurse Ratchet, etc.) Make it a good one and share it with all your friends. When you give your dark side a nickname, it dismantles the significance of it.

7) Write a letter to it.
Talk to your dark side. Engage with it and say everything you need to say to it. Writing the letter helps you realize that you are in a relationship with your dark side. We think we’re only able to have relationships with people, but we actually have relationships with many things. Your dark side is impacting your life. Understand this relationship and take control of it.

Make Promises & Implement Consequences.
Put in promises to stop your dark side so it cannot stop YOU any longer. My dark side is still hurt and mad at people from long ago. It wants me to play the mean conversations over and over again in my head. I’ve made these thoughts ILLEGAL for me. What I mean by illegal is that if I don’t stop my dark side’s internal discussion of past betrayal in less than 30 seconds, I have a consequence. Designing a consequence will help you keep your promises and ultimately muzzle your dark side. If I listen to my dark side and break my promise, my consequence is I have to throw $10 onto the street immediately. It totally works and stops my dark side in its tracks.

You are capable of dismantling your dark side. Remember this? There is a scene in the movie The Wizard of Oz that truly captures how the mysteriousness of your dark side can disappear within moments. When Dorothy and her gang arrive in Oz to see the almighty Wizard, they believe he is a scary, powerful force. But when the curtain is pulled back and he’s exposed as an old man moving levers behind a curtain, everything falls apart. That’s how it is with your dark side.

Once you acknowledge it, expose it and laugh at it, you will see it’s not powerful at all. Your dark side is just a scared old man fumbling behind a curtain. You’re the one giving it all the power and can just as easily take it away!

For more by Lauren Zander, click here (http://www NULL.huffingtonpost NULL.com/lauren-zander).

For more on emotional intelligence, click here (http://www NULL.huffingtonpost NULL.com/news/emotional-intelligence).

Kelle Hampton: The One Thing That Kept A New Mom From Falling Apart

Published 2012-04-05T17:30:13+00:000000001330201204 | By Doc Hollywood

Healing is a bit like watching a flower bloom. You don’t really know when it’s going to happen, and despite the fact that you might be sitting there in front of barren ground attempting to will a bare stem to blossom, it doesn’t happen on command. No, it is gradual. Like time-lapse photography. And as you are sitting, waiting, pleading for growth, you eventually begin to forget that you are waiting until suddenly, days later, you look and behold… a bloom.

Although I might not have known it, my heart began its healing process the moment my eyes met Nella’s for the first time. It was painful. And brutal. And would be followed by moments that seem so far from bloom-worthy, you’d think my little seed had been dug up and abandoned. But, no. Healing was there, burrowing its roots deep into my heart, painfully yet purposefully cutting through, the way the strong roots do until they are grounded deep enough to anchor what they know will follow — growth.

I woke up on January 23, the day after Nella was born, to a dark hospital room. And when I say I “woke up,” I mean I decided to get out of bed for the day because I never slept that night. I closed my eyes to numb the pain a bit, but never slept. It was 5:45 a.m., Katie was asleep next to me in bed, her arm wrapped around my waist where Nella was snuggled in a nook between us, and Heidi was half asleep on the pull-out couch next to the bed, her semireclining position suggesting she was attentive and willing to jump up and help when she heard the slightest of my cries. I recalled for a moment what I thought this morning would be. How I had imagined it a week before. That sunlight would be streaming into the windows of my happy, flower-strewn room and I would be nursing my baby, victoriously smiling, awaiting the throng of visitors. And here I was, beaten down, despairing, drowning in the darkness of a room that held so much sadness. I looked down at the tiny bundle nestled next to me and traced her lips with my finger. Her perfect little lips. I watched her chest rise and fall peacefully next to me as I slipped out of bed, snuggling her next to Katie so she wouldn’t be alone. I wanted Brett. I wanted the room to fill with friends. I wanted to see sunshine and to shed the sadness so badly. So I took the first step to newness I could think of — a shower.

I’ll never forget that shower. I’ll never forget shedding my nightgown in that tiny bathroom and looking down to see the absence of her — my stomach was gone. And the sadness gripped me. Suffocated me. I wanted that stomach back so badly, wanted to have some reminder of the happiness I had — of the perfect baby I imagined was burrowed inside me. It was over. There was no beautiful bulge that kicked and pressed her feet against me. Just the doughy remains of what was. I was cold and couldn’t manage to get the water warm enough from the measly trickle that dripped out of the hospital showerhead. I didn’t want to wake Heidi or Katie after what I had put them through that night, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I pressed my hand against the cold tile in front of me, leaned over, and let my body and my heart do what they needed to do — sob… hard.

“Heidi,” I cried, hoping she might be able to hear me over the water stream. “Heidi!” I called again, desperate for company. And then she appeared, and I lost it. “I can’t be in here alone. I can’t do this. I can’t breathe.” I stood there cold, naked, and literally gasping for air.
“I’m right here,” she affirmed, and I watched as my friend dragged a rocking chair into that tiny bathroom, right next to the shower, and plopped her exhausted body into it. “I’ll keep talking,” she said, and I listened to her as I lathered my hair, shaved my legs, and tried to will the trickling lukewarm water to wash away my heartache.

“The net,” my friends call it — the ever-present existence of one another, standing by, ready to catch any one of us who might be falling. We’ve all needed it at different times over the years. My friend Kelly needed it when she went through four years of infertility and two in-vitros. We’d huddle up at a bar after one of her disappointing blood tests and tell her it was going to be all right. That she was going to be a mama someday. That her body was not broken and that periods, yes, indeed sucked. And we’d sit for hours, telling stories, crying, laughing, bonding over cold beers with lots of limes. And then there was the occasional bad day for any one of us. And a battle cry would disperse over text or e-mail or down the line of our trusty phone tree. We’ve been there for one another through getting married, having babies, stressing at work, arguing with husbands, loving family, you name it. We gather over brunch at our favorite coffee shops and cover one another’s asses when we’re late to pick up kids or forget to bring a birthday present. And the moment the battle cry went out just minutes after my girl arrived that January evening, they were there for me. In droves.

As I stepped out of the shower and took the towel Heidi held out for me, I knew they’d be here soon. I didn’t have to ask. I knew there were secret schedules and quiet phone calls being made in the hallway, reporting my status, arranging the troops. Months later I would ask them each how they were told and what they felt, but I didn’t know at the time. I didn’t know a birthday party celebration came to a crashing halt the evening before when the phone call came in. I didn’t know my friend Stephanie fell to her knees on the cement in Marsha’s driveway and cried for me while others helped her up or that Rayna walked out of the hospital, got into her car, laid her head on her steering wheel, and shook with sobs. I didn’t know she was angry with God. What I did know was that they’d be here, as long as I needed them, and they would be here soon.

Excerpted from “Bloom: Finding Beauty in the Unexpected — A Memoir” by Kelle Hampton (http://www NULL.harpercollins NULL.com/books/Bloom-Kelle-Hampton?isbn=9780062045034&HCHP=TB_Bloom). Published by William Morrow.

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Lauren Zander: Ode To Your Dark Side

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