Melancholy - You Have a Choice

Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess, except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. (Harold S. Kushner in foreword of Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning")

I was reminded of this insight when I reflected on shadow experiences. Darkness is part of every spiritual traveler perhaps especially because we are aiming for the light;  the darkness reminds us of the fact that we are human like everyone else. Melancholy, restless energy, anger and fear visit us like every other mortal. Don't run away from these feelings. Just sit there, without judgment and without escape. If you engage, you have given power to it. But when you accept, when you have become one with that dark feeling without responding to it, the next divine spark will be just around the corner lifting you out of it. And your darkness dissolves as  the morning fog in the rising sun.

You have a choice. You don't own your feelings and you can't control your thoughts, but you are in charge in of how you react to them. Just sit there, accept, embrace, transcend and be free!