We must no longer allow ourselves to identify with any negative state, regardless of why that state tells us we must embrace its painful presence. That is to say, we must become as ruthless in detecting and rejecting these dark thoughts and feelings as they have been ruthless in wrecking our lives. Here is why this instruction is such a spiritual imperative if we wish to know the light life.
Each time we say "I" to what is destructive or corruptive in us, we actually incorporate and reinforce that same dark state. What does this mean, to incorporate darkness into one's life? It means, literally, that we embody it. A brief explanation helps shed light on this esoteric revelation.
Whenever we identify with negative forces, we unknowingly provide them with two conditions they can't have otherwise: First, we give these chaotic states a place to appear within a plane of reality to which they ordinarily have no other access. And second, at the same time, we lend them the vital life energies they must have to sustain their life-draining presence within our psychic system.
What I would have you glean from these insights is this one great lesson in letting go: Without us to supply these negative states with both the vehicle and the life force they need to survive, they cannot flourish. Withdraw water from where weeds grow, and they will wither; it's a natural law. So, if we wish to end our relationship with what compromises us, we are required to do one thing to the best of our ability: we must no longer lend ourselves to the will of any dark state looking to use us as its vehicle.
Whenever we feel some form of negativity brewing in us -- regardless of the circumstances which our lower nature tells us justifies this incorporation -- we should work to remember and put into practice our new intention. Now that we know the true nature of these negative states, we can choose to incorporate what is light and right before we swallow any other suggested considerations offered to us by our own conflicted nature. This means that in moments of trial, our first task is to wake up, become fully aware of ourselves, and then dare to do the light thing. Let's look a bit deeper at what's involved in this new interior action.
Rather than our habitual practice of consulting a host of disturbing thoughts about how to get things settled, which is like asking the proverbial fox to guard the chicken coop, we see this contradiction and make an entirely new choice. Instead of trying to imagine who or what we need to rescue us, we become aware of those troubled thoughts and feelings that cause us to feel we are in danger. This act of heightened self-awareness brings all that disturbs us into the light to which we have now turned. In other words, instead of unconsciously allowing what is dark to drag us into its conflicted state, we make a conscious choice to bring the whole of our present condition into the Light of Now. This one action transforms all that it encompasses in us, and everything changes. Our sense of gladness grows, as gradually the light of higher self-awareness does for us what we have not been able to do for ourselves. We are set free.