Surviving your Darkest Moments – 5 Ways to Raise Your Vibration and Connect with Your Spirit When Times Are Tough

How do you get through the darkest moments of your life? 

The moments when your heart is breaking, hope is shattered and every part of your being is aching. The moments when you’d swear the Universe has abandoned you and that the light at the end of the tunnel is nowhere in sight.

Do you know the kind of moments I am talking about?

The ones where not matter how much everyone around you tells you to be positive, that everything is working out for the best and to keep calling on Heaven for help – you just can’t hear the guidance, feel the love or see a way out….

Have you been in this place?

Whether through a breakdown because of a job that you hate, the tragic loss of love one, the end of a long-term relationship, or whatever the nature of the persona crisis is – How did you get through it?

Most people have been there at one point or another – experienced a dark night of the soul. I certainly have had my fair share of dark spells. A particular experience that comes to mind is when I went through rough patch about a year ago. I was becoming increasing unhappy at my last job and when a personal crisis was added to the mix, I felt was though I was suffocating. I didn’t know how I was going to get through each day. I was confused and naturally, since I dropped into my ego and fixated on everything that was going wrong, I wasn’t hearing messages from guides/angels very clearly.The world becomes a pretty lonely place when that happens.

When I reached my breaking point, I realized that I needed to find a way to disassociate from the drama. So I devised a personal survival plan which involved spending time each day connecting with my spirit, surrounding myself with things that made my heart beat faster and making more time to do things that brought me joy.
I thought I’d share some of my lessons. Here five things that helped me get through it all:

1. Surrender, Release and Breathe
Surrendering is a humbling experience. In moments when you feel stuck or when you have little control over what is happening, then it’s probably the best thing that you can do for yourself. Surrender your situation to the Universe and trust that all is working out for your highest good. Each time I felt overwhelmed, I would take a deep breath and surrender whatever I was feeling or experiencing to God. This forced me to stay present and live from one breath to the next.

2. Writing to Heal
Writing is therapeutic. It is a good way to reflect on your thoughts and purge your emotions. I began doing the 3 Morning Pages exercise from The Artist Way as part of my survival plan. I woke up 15 minutes earlier each morning to journal. It was the most cathartic process. I felt so much lighter and ready to start the day after doing the morning pages. Some days I purged. Surprisingly, although I waited for storms to populate the pages – gusts of emotion, clouds of anger and rain showers of tears and hurt, these storms were few. My journal pages often reflected light back at me. My inner guidance surfaced like a bright moon in the dark sky. Spirit revealed both hidden aspects of my soul and what was important.

3. Spiritual Practice Routine 
Our meditation and spiritual practices usually get disrupted when times are tough. Yet, this is when we need to stick with them the most. Having a meditation routine keeps you grounded in your centre and connected to the Divine. Make time to meditate, clear your chakras, do yoga, journal, read inspiring or insightful passages or whatever else helps you find peace, even if it is only for 10 minutes. If things are overwhelming work, then it might be worthwhile to take a 5 minutes or so during a break to escape to a quite place and centre yourself.

4. Candles, Colour and Crystals
Lighting candles has a calming effect. The energy of the little flames is comforting somehow. During a particularly challenging time a year ago, every day when I got home from work, I lit some candles and my aromatherapy oil burner, took out my watercolours and painted mandalas. I would get lost in the colours as I painted. I did this everyday for a 2 week period and looked forward to getting home each day. Working with colours, especially through art therapy, is a wonderful way to raise your vibration. The light yellows, pinks and warm oranges are uplifting, while the greens and blues are soothing. I also carried Rose quartz around with me and would rub my fingers over it and focus on my breathing whenever I felt out of sorts. Crystal energy is powerfully healing.

5. Spend time in Nature
Spending time in nature is an easy way to raise your vibration and reconnect with your spirit. Nature is therefore a powerful tool that can help us heal, not just physically, but also mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Spend time in nature as often as you can. Go out and get some sun, spend time in the garden or try spending an afternoon at a lake or dam just watching life go by. Go on nature hikes, forest walks, wild life safaris or go bird watching. Take walks on the beach. When we are grounded in nature, it becomes easier for us to connect with our Angels and our Spirit Guides so that we are better able to receive messages and guidance.

Above all, it is also important to remind yourself that you are a perfect, whole and complete child of God. All is already taken. Focus on energy of Love and allow it to expand and flow to all of the areas of your life that need healing.

Understand Your True Nature

“You are a Divine Immortal Being – a precious child of the Universe. Your primary purpose on Earth is to recognize your true nature as a Spiritual Creative Being.” ~ Sonia Choquette

As Sonia Choquette, Dr. Wayne Dyer and many other spiritual teachers have said – Your essential nature is powerful, infinite and Divine. It is magical and profound. When we arrive on this Earthly plane as a baby, everyone is in awe of our perfection and beauty. We are showered with love, acceptance and there is nothing that we need to do to prove our worth that anyone.

As we grow, this changes. Many of us become conditioned, brainwashed and groomed to forget who and what we are. So we start to identify with the ego. The ego creates stories about who it thinks we are. In the end you believe these lies, learn to hate yourself, belittle yourself and diminish your sense of self worth. You feel that you are imperfect and deeply flawed. Nothing you do is worthy and ending up striving to live up to a false idea of what perfection is, just so that you can justify the space that you take up. You feel that your mere existence is an inconvenience to the world. So to make ourselves feel better, we try even harder, still never feeling good enough. The ego fights to maintain control over your so that you remain fearful, unhappy and disconnected from your Divine nature.

Losing touch with your true nature is a common challenge that light workers face. When this happens, you feel lost, alone and abandoned by the Universe. That feeling of disconnection is a harrowing experience for most of us. Although the ego would have you believe otherwise, the truth is that, although you have grown and changed in many ways, nothing has changed about your true nature. You are still just as perfect, lovable and worthy right now as you were the day that you were born. Your intelligent, unlimited and creative spirit still dwells within you. The only thing that has changed is the way that you have learnt to think about yourself. And all that separates you from embodying the Divine expression of the Universe that you truly are is the belief that you are not Divine.

Sometimes we engage in a battle to tame the ego, which in itself ends up entrapping us in the ego. While some teachers encourage fighting to overcome the ego, others teach a much gentler approach. That is to bless the ego with love, handle it with kindness and to observe its antics with a light heart and humour. I find this gentle approach to be very effective for me personally. Deepening your spiritual practise and spending more time in meditation, in a state of peace, harmony and joy allow you to be better acquainted with your essential nature. As you do so, you are also better able to distinguish between the voice of the ego and the loving wisdom of your soul.

Connecting you a space of love is one of the greatest indicates of being aligned to our true nature. When we feel love, we are experiencing being with our heart and soul, and not with our head. Your Divine nature, your essence, your soul and the Mysteries of the Universe are all here in this moment. They have never left you. You just need to be more aware of it.

A letter from the Heart….

Dear Friends,

I know that things haven’t exactly worked out as you would have liked. I know that you are also struggling to find strength and hope to keep moving forward. What I need you to know is that as difficult as it seems right now, you have the inner strength to pull you through to the other side. And when you are connected to your own inner strength, remember that you can call on your Spirit to help guide and carry you through.

Everything happens for a reason. You have heard it said that life would not have thrown curves your way if you could not handle it. This is true.  Yes, all you want is peace, a place to lie down and rest. You long for a life of gentle experiences, serenity, harmony and bliss. But sometimes we hold too small a vision for ourselves. You see, the Universe has a bigger vision for you and your purpose on this Earth. And so it brings challenging experiences to you to shake your world up a little. This is not to punish you, but to help you grow into a greater version of yourself.

Remember to be kind to yourself. If you need to grieve what is lost, then do so. Allow yourself the time to heal your fragile heart. Forgive yourself for where you feel you have failed both yourself and others. Forgive others for the pain they have caused you. Know that we are all doing the best that we can.

The other day I saw a quote that read ‘Things will get better, even if it isn’t today…it will eventually.’ This rings true to many of our difficult experiences. Even when we think our heart is breaking under the weight of the sorrow we feel in the moment, this too shall pass. For now, just take a deep breath and keep breathing through the moment, as one minute passes for the next to arrive. Take your time and breath, release and then when you are ready, move forward one step at a time on your path to a fresh start. Remember to call on Universe’s help every step of the way.