David Rubin joined our EBT group nearly two years ago. He lives in San Diego, happily married, on the road to being wired at 1. On Wednesday night, we were settled into our telegroup, a warm circle, moving through the kits, and David said, “One of the greatest gifts I have received from doing this work is learning to accept my dark side. In the past I thought that I would change and my dark side would disappear. Now I know that I can live WITH my dark side so I simply move over on the couch to make room for all of me.”
The room moved. He was sitting on the couch next to his dark side — the part of us that tends to be triggered and to catapult us to stressed states. I was aghast, and stopped the group, asked him to talk about that more, which he did. The power of that idea, core to EBT, to celebrate our light side and know, not judge, but set limits with the dark side, is NOT what you hear at the office. Nobody says, ”love yourself unconditionally” OR “make friends with the parts of you that are not perfect.”
One of the legacies of an insecure attachment (and how many of us given the stresses today experience a secure connection) is having to be perfect or awful, to be very good or very bad. The being bad or awful, in part comes from the natural indignation and protest from having to get it right all the time.
So join David. Imagine that sitting next to you on the couch is your dark side, all of your tendencies that add to your stress. You love it. You know that you will always have a dark side, even if it shows up in changing ways. In time it tends to diminish, but the size of it, the space it takes up, and its color and texture don’t matter much. What matters is if you reject it, or whether you make peace with it.
According to David: “I have learned to accept myself as perfect, whole and and complete just as I am, light and dark sides. I am the loving parent I never had and can enjoy all the rewards of living and giving from life at 1.”
Consider the possibility of sitting on the couch and seeing, but not judging your dark side — noticing it and making friends with it! What a relief to know that you don’t have to be perfect to be wonderful.
David joined our EBT group nearly two years ago. He lives in San Diego, happily married, on the road to being wired at 1. On Wednesday night, we were settled into our telegroup, a warm circle, moving through the kits, and David said, “One of the greatest gifts I have received from doing this work is learning to accept my dark side. In the past I thought that I would change and my dark side would disappear. Now I know that I can live WITH my dark side so I simply move over on the couch to make room for all of me.”
