Some suggest that if you are truly spiritual, you’ll eliminate your dark side so that nothing upsets you. Others believe that challenging times and dark emotions are signs that you are not good enough and are being punished by God.

These ideas ring false to me as there is a purpose to our light and dark sides. We need both to make the most out of life.

While meditating a while back, I received this Divine message that pertains to us all:

Be with the darkness. Do not fight it. You are grieving/mourning what you thought your life would be. Experience the loss of your control. Accept it. Then you can feel the peace of where you are. There is no reason to fear. Sit in the dark. Mourn. Cry. Know that what you expected is not to be. Know that I have something greater planned for you. It is only by experiencing complete blackness that your eyes will adjust and you will see that pinprick of light. Follow the flicker and it will grow brighter. I am the flame.

Getting cranky, angry or depressed doesn’t indicate a lack of faith.

I’d once thought that if I couldn’t rid myself of these lower–so-called negative—emotions, I should bury them or ignore their existence. But after receiving this message, I began to see it isn’t wise to deny what I feel. In fact, acknowledging and learning from these episodes increase my spiritual growth.

God wants us to love ourselves as much as The Most Divine adores us. It is normal (and even healthy) to experience frustration, sadness or anger. And, it is in those times that we can feel the Divine’s presence the strongest if we only allow it.

While we benefit from being with our darkness, we don’t want to dwell too long there as it can consume us. This is a matter of maintaining our personal balance. Stay with it long enough to get to the reason you are feeling this way. Acknowledge it and ask it what it needs to heal. It is important to tend to our emotional gardens and show ourselves the compassion we deserve. Emotional darkness is our teacher, an integral part of our development.

Everything in life is cyclical.

We experience highs and lows, births and deaths, and winters and summers. Without night, our days would be unproductive and our bodies would be weary. It is the night that makes us slow down, rest and recharge so that we can get the most out of the next day.

The key is to remember the bright light of love when the darkness reappears. Know that light is there waiting for you when you are ready to retreat to it. Accept there is a side of you that you may not like. It is a barometer, a tool we need to pay attention to. For instance, take anger. Most of the time, it is rooted in our fears. By recognizing those fears, we can overcome them. Ironically, our lower moods can teach us how to achieve an overall higher vibration.

By reaching higher vibrations, we can fine-tune our intuitive abilities and plug into energetic resources that we couldn’t previously sense before. It’s a difficult task to face our darkest recesses, but one that will yield fantastic benefits.

Caution Paranormal Investigators.

If you are getting ready to conduct a paranormal investigation, make sure you are in a higher mindset. Do not go into a haunted location when you are angry or depressed. Like attracts like so it’s important to be in a good place mentally to ensure that you will draw higher energies.