The Roots of Darkness

In my blog, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, I introduced the darkness meter. The meter encompasses our internal systems that judge everything we do, everything we say, including all the things we don’t do or say. The judging, in and of itself, is part of your paradigm and basically harmless. It's what we do because of the labeling that hurts us the most.

Each one of us has a darkness meter. Everyone’s meter is unique as its based on your life’s experiences. My darkness meter uses the labels the good, the bad, and the ugly. What are your darkness meter labels? Diminishing the impact of the darkness meter and our behaviours in the aftermath are the intention of this blog. This blog builds on the concept of the darkness meter. I recommend you do the work to identify and solidify your personal darkness meter labels. If you worked through The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly blog and you’re unsure about your meter labels, you might want to register for the workshop.

I use the adage change your mind, change your life, a lot. Like anything else, it seems simple on the surface and yet I’ve been unpacking it from a few different angles for decades. For someone to change their mind, they need to change their thoughts. Being curious has helped me to understand that there are many thoughts or beliefs connected to my darkness meter. I now see how they form a network that supports and reinforces the meter’s settings. On my journey, I’ve often thought…this is it! I found the root. Eureka!!! Only to be reminded a few weeks later that the belief or thought is still lurking waiting for the opportunity to make its way back to the party.

That’s when I began to understand how the networks consisted of rooted beliefs, deeply connected to one another, and supporting and feeding each other. These are tight knit belief networks that support and reinforce every setting of your darkness meter. Even when you find what you think is the root, unless you have identified at least fifty percent of the other roots its connected to, your attempt to disassociate will most likely not succeed. The work here involves unearthing the beliefs and connecting the dots. Awareness and deepening our understandings of how our root network’s function is key here. Most networks of rooted beliefs have what I call a mother lode. This is the one rooted belief that received so much reinforcement in your early years that it gave birth to its own network of beliefs. And most of us have several mother lodes that support our darkness meter’s labels. Let’s unpack this together with one of my personal examples.

One of my mother lodes is I am not good enough. How do I know that? I kept coming back to face it repeatedly! In varying circumstances and in different areas of my life. In my relationships, in my career, in my education pursuits, in my health, in my finances. I can own that I am a slow learner at times, but not decades. I had come to refer to these as my learning edges. Those places that always called for more learning. Although I still refer to them as that, I also now understand how they are my mother lode beliefs. This mother lode belief that I am not good enough plays a supporting role in all labels of my darkness meter.

It keeps me from fully experiencing the joy of success – my success, because nothing is ever good enough. I am a perfectionist – a powerful belief that supports this mother lode. I like to pretend I am in recovery – who am I kidding! It supports my labeling things bad when they aren’t – because nothing is ever up to standard. And it shows up in all areas of my life with additional rooted beliefs like I am a good writer. I look great for my age. I am a great facilitator, I am a dedicated worker, I am physically fit, I am a good mother, I am a good daughter, etc. You get the idea. Now we are building this one network that supports the I am not good enough mother lode.

Let’s add how all these beliefs that feed the perfectionist belief, now become an even more powerful force for the I am not good enough mother lode. Oh yeah, bring on the imagination. All this evidence of possibly falling short begins to feed the imagination in a not so good way and before I know it, I’ve made up an ugly story. It all starts with me thinking I am a bad person – somehow, I pride myself in my high level of ownership and then I use it against myself! And then, eventually, rather than the event/situation being labeled ugly, I personally adopt the ugly label as a human. Not a great place to sit and ponder. It happens in the blink of an eye, quickly and unconsciously, until I increase my awareness. Shame and guilt lurk in the darkness, exposure gives light to the areas I experience or judge to be dark.

Can you identify some of your mother lode beliefs and some of the deep rooted beliefs and that support the network? Other rooted beliefs that support the I am not good enough mother lode include:

• Beliefs around having high standards: I have high standards – that supports my perfectionist and sets me up for failure in relationships where I expect those same standards, in ALL areas of my life.

• Beliefs around relationships – what they ‘should’ look like – the ideal. I had many deeply rooted beliefs of what my relationship as a mother, and daughter, a wife, should look like. They fed the perfectionist and the I am not good enough.

• Beliefs around education and my career – I thought my degrees would make me rich and I would benefit financially. I discounted all the other benefits of my education and there have been many.

• Beliefs around my physical health and pushing my body past its boundaries – I tend to forget my age and have a belief that I am physically fit for my age.

All these beliefs set up the potential for expectations. Expectations are the grandfather of disappointment. I first heard this in an Excellence Seminars workshop, and it resounded deeply. I have come to terms with my own expectations in many ways and continue to expand in my own wonderment and acknowledgement of the important role they play in my life and their potential for creating chaos everywhere!

As with any concept I introduce, there is no one solution or pathway forward. Nothing I teach is about a quick fix. Nothing I teach is about a fix. None of us need to be fixed. We are all messy humans on our own journey through life. The idea is not to diminish, remove, or get rid of the darkness meter or the roots of darkness that support it. Rather it is about making an effort to shed more light on what the darkness is teaching you. What are the lessons that keep presenting themselves in your lives? Like my I am not good enough mother lode. Similar lessons kept showing up through various experiences in all areas of my life.

Awareness is one sure way to shed light on the roots of darkness that support your darkness meter’s current settings. Deconstruction has become one of my favorite new terms and processes. For me, it includes taking things apart, much like I do with language. Writing this blog has helped me to process my own mother lodes and identify a lot of beliefs that support them. Some of my identified networks are huge. In the end, my tree’s roots are totally interwoven.

As you begin to identify your mother lodes, continue the work of identifying its supporting beliefs and through greater understanding you will shed light on the darkness and know how it informs who you are in big ways. This process has enlightened me and provided so many insights.

Curious to learn more? Visit our website and register for the Roots of Darkness 3-hour workshop and develop your own tree!