Inside all of us lurks a dark side. You may recognize this darker side as the cynical voice in the back of your head that whispers evilly that you won’t succeed, that you aren’t beautiful, or that you don’t deserve to be loved. Having a dark side seems useless and unwelcome, and it is completely natural that you may be thinking, “why do I have a dark side?? I never asked for that! What on earth is the point??” Unfortunately, having a dark side is as natural to being human as having a nose. The dark side provides needed contrast so that we can understand and appreciate the purer things in life like love and self-confidence. One of the biggest challenges that we face in life is to recognize that our dark sides cannot be eliminated, and to understand that the dark voices we hear come from a place of fear and uncertainty.

I want to share an experience with you that I had with my boyfriend where I ventured into my dark side. But first, some background information. Due to my relatively young age of 22, I am in a phase of life where I am very selfish. I am too young to have really stepped out into the world to establish my independence, and too old to be taken care of by my parents. The problem with this is that I didn’t receive a lot of nurturing when I was young—my parents divorced when I was 2 and I grew up with my Dad. My Dad is both loving and dedicated, and did everything he could to take care of me, but his own emotional barriers prevented him from being compassionate and empathic. My mother is very compassionate, but she wasn’t around to give that to me or teach me to be empathic for others. Needless to say, my upbringing did not prepare me for understanding how to connect emotionally with people, nor did it prepare me to be able to take care of another person without feeling like I am self-destructing. And on top of that, I am very protective of my independence, having experienced very little of it.

Back to my original story: On my Birthday, after an entire day of activities focused on me, my boyfriend and I were lying in bed exhausted. He orchestrated not one, but three Birthday events for me in 24 hours, each involving a different combination of friends and family. At the end of the day, he was emotionally exhausted and needed to be held and coddled. But I could not bring myself to actually hold him. My insides turned into metal gears and they started to grind against one another, threatening to tear me to pieces from the inside out. I was paralyzed—I couldn’t stomach the idea of nurturing him and I couldn’t understand why. I felt so awful and ashamed of myself that I finally put my arms around him half-heartedly. After a minute or two I could tell how empty my compassion felt, and tears starting slipping out. I whispered, “I don’t think I’m cut out for this.” I wanted him to think “this” meant “the relationship.” I couldn’t believe what I was saying. To my horror, it kept going…I told him that I’m not good enough for him and that I can’t give him what he needs. I told him that I fear I will never be able to take care of him the way he takes care of me.

After reassuring me that I am in fact very loving and very capable of being compassionate, he asked, “So you thought you’d say those things to see if I’d abandon you?” It was true. I felt so uncomfortable with the idea of taking care of him that it seemed easier to push him away and to run and hide. The voice that tried to push him away came from a very dark side of me that is full of fear and self-doubt. That part of me is afraid that by loving him, I will abandon myself and lose my independence, and that by being compassionate and empathic I will become weak. My dark side also acted on the anger I’ve harbored since early childhood, exclaiming, “now hold on, why should I give him the things that no one gave ME!!!?”

I cannot assume that my boyfriend will take care of me and nurture me the way my mom and dad should have—only parents can truly take care of you without expecting anything in return. I have to understand that giving love does not mean that I am giving my independence away and it definitely does not mean that I will fall apart at the seams. I have to confront the fears that linger from childhood so that my dark side doesn’t prey on them and use them to make me self-destruct.

We all need to confront our dark sides once in a while and to recognize that the negativity and ill-wishing voices are just symptoms of deep wounds, mostly from our childhood. Every wound from childhood will be played out again and again until we learn to heal ourselves. (For example: I was not nurtured very much and was even conditioned to feel that being compassionate was the same as being weak and giving away your sense of self. Therefore, as an adult I struggle with demonstrating empathy and even feel angry when I am asked to be compassionate—I am too afraid of the vulnerability and emotional connectedness that come with this.) We cannot even begin to heal ourselves without first understanding why we have wounds and where they came from. Examining and understanding our underlying fears and wounds is the road to mastering our dark sides, so that when they rear their ugly heads we can put them in their places again.