The Dark Before the Light — Emerging Painful Memories & Emotions

In this episode of Abandoning Cycles, we explore the quiet, difficult phase of transformation where painful memories and emotions rise to the surface. This “chrysalis” stage invites you into silence and deep reflection—helping you recognize patterns, process past experiences, and set stronger boundaries.

Though uncomfortable, this darkness is necessary for growth. It’s where healing begins and true change takes root—reminding you that the light always follows.

Transcript

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Hi, and welcome to Abandoning Cycles. My name is Tone and I am a holistic and spiritual life coach. If you are here, it is not a coincidence. This episode found you for a reason. You might be a light traveler, a light healer, or conduit, or empath, or just someone seeking answers. Whether this is your first episode or you've been with us the entire time, welcome. I hope this is able to help you in some shape, form, or fashion take what resonates and leave the rest. This episode is very interesting on so many levels because it talks about the things that we avoid, the things that we often don't talk to others about, the deep painful memories from relationships, overwhelming emotions that keep us isolated from others, and the relationship patterns we tend to avoid that shape our cycles, our life cycles, and keep us stuck in those patterns. Those feelings that we get when people are no longer in our lives and we are in the darkness. We may be surrounded by others physically, but mentally, emotionally, we feel alone. Or at least it feels that way. That moment when you realize your thoughts are so loud and the emotions that you feel are so intense. These are phases that we go through before we really start to break out of our cocoon. This is where the full darkness of the chrysalis takes place, the part where silence and deep processing begin. This is where we explore the deeply transformative phase of darkness, the quiet, often uncomfortable space where it truly begins, where silence, solitude, and emotional intensity are not setbacks, but necessary steps towards becoming your highest self, and where the roots of change are created before growing your wings. This is where our brain starts to process those painful memories, the darkness and silence is needed in order for us to grow. When we plant a seed, it sits in the soil in darkness for a significant amount of time before it starts to grow and connect with the light. The same thing happens for crystallus transformation. In order for what's inside to grow well and strong, it needs to be able to formulate successfully without being disturbed by anything or anyone. But sometimes that silence and loneliness is needed in order for us to fully see what has been happening around us this whole time. Sometimes too much distraction can cause us to miss things that are so important. Too much distraction can impact with our ability to see warning signs, opportunities that sometimes come right in front of us that we don't see, or messages messages from the universe that data downloads. Have you ever met someone and felt like you really connected with that person? In the beginning, they seem like a really great person. Whether this is a friend, whether this is a potential partner, right? Maybe this is a family member that you've just now meeting for the first time. Over time, you start to realize that this person wasn't as great as you thought they they were, right? In the beginning. Then you start to question what happened that I missed the signs from the beginning. What happened that I didn't see that part of them that's being revealed now? Without the self and emotional awareness, we miss so many things that would have been helpful in navigating relationships from the beginning. And without the self and emotional awareness, we're often left with painful memories from relationships because we didn't set boundaries in the beginning. And we wanted to give that person the chance because hey, they were new, they didn't give us a reason to really doubt them, right? So how could they let us down when they seem like such a great person? You connect with somebody, you feel the connection, it feels great. They start to show their true colors, they start to feed on the light that you project, this the light that you illuminate. And then all of a sudden your light isn't as bright as it was before. And while they take the light, they leave you with a little bit of the darkness. I'm not saying that everybody's like that. I'm just mainly speaking on the individuals that cannot give themselves that in which they seek, right? They look for the confidence, they look for the joy and the happiness, the contentment, the you know, person who's able to make well-informed decisions and you know do it with such a grace and inner peace. These are all things that most people cannot give themselves. So they look for it in you. And as you sit in this darkness and you reflect and you process in the stillness, things start to become a lot clearer. The understanding really starts to set in, and hopefully you're able to recognize a lot of the patterns in these relationships with others so that you can work on rewriting them. But as you step back within the darkness, it the darkness, the loneliness mentally and emotionally, forces us, and physically, of course, forces us to step back, right? Because you have to step back in order to look at the full picture. Because it's kind of hard to really see it fully and clearly the way that you would like to when you're still in it, when you have not cut that person off, or you have not chosen just yet to take a step back from that person that continuously aims to hurt you or bring you down, does not want to see the fullest potential, right, in you, right? What you have to offer, whether it's consciously or unconsciously, because some people don't even realize what they're doing in the moment because it just comes off so naturally, it's on autopilot. But when you take that step back, right, you're sitting in the darkness, you're able to look at things from a full picture, from the full puzzle. That's when people start to act differently. Not you. And instead of understanding or asking questions, the energy comes with judgment and assumptions. This type of toxic energy will keep you in the stagnant phase of your transformation, it will keep you in that pre-contemplation, contemplation phase of thinking about growth and seeing a better version of yourself. Yet it will never happen because we allow others to interfere with our lives on a surface level and on a deeper level. We allow others to interfere with our lives mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. And if they have something to say about your distance, or you walking away, let them. And really determine what it is that attracts you to certain people. What draws others into you or draws you to others in such a way? And really seeing do these people kind of have the same type of behaviors? Do they move or operate on the same level? And why? Why is it that they do that? Why do you keep attracting such said individuals? Start recognizing that need to be rewritten rewritten so that they work better for you. This is not an easy task, it takes time. This is why silence is so important and is such a key factor in this transformation phase. Because if you were still in the relationship, it would be difficult for you to really take that take the step back or put things on pause to be able to process the way that you should, to be able to recognize when someone is holding you back from you becoming the highest version of yourself. And that's not what religion is about. They're going to be that encouraging person that supporter that comes with compassion and understanding. If you have someone in your life that's constantly interfering with your process, it's never gonna get done. And you will remain a seed in the ground that's ungrown or trapped in a chrysalis, a protective barrier that you will never break out of. So when they see you working on yourself, sometimes it'll kind of feel like you're holding up a mirror in front of their face. And it's just a reminder that they should be doing instead of focusing on stopping your growth, your success, and you becoming the highest version of yourself. I'm not recommending that anybody avoid painful memories from relationships and people that have hurt you in the past, and not at all. Sometimes we hold up these mirrors, right? And I'm not literally saying holding up a mirror, right? You know, by you continuing to move on with your life and do what you need to do, you are showing people that you don't have to be stuck in the negative or the toxic, right? Some people, you know, move forward without the processing, and then it causes them to avoid the the processing memories, right? They just stuff it in, so it just kind of seems like an illusion to others. It makes it seem like you have moved on and you have, you know, done the shadow work and you have worked on yourself, and you know, really working through a lot of the things that really hurt you from these relationships, but you really didn't do the work. I'm not talking about those people, talking about those people. No, no, no, and no. I do not recommend that at all. The people who are really, you know, seeking to process things and let it go and move on. Right? Sometimes processing painful memories can be a lot, right? It can be very heavy, and if they're too painful, please profess professional counseling, as they may be too painful to process alone. And just on a side note, okay, before we really get back into the last little bit of this, when we go through any significant you know, events, heavy, emotionally painful events, or or even traumatic events, we store that in our bodies, and it shows through our breathing, and the way that we breathe really has a lot to do with the circumstances that we have experienced in life, especially the painful ones, the traumatic ones. We release a lot of that pain from the body through the way that we breathe. So please keep this in mind, people, as we process information and cut off these types, these toxic cycles to help you to become a better you. There's people out there who's saying or you know, think about past memories that contribute to toxic relationship cycles on a surface level, but we need to be able to process, you know, these deep painful memories to increase our awareness and allow us to set healthier boundaries with ourselves. It's not just we're going to acknowledge him, right? And go, oh yeah, that happened, you know, it is what it is. No, we still hold that with us. Acknowledging is just the first step, right? Becoming aware of it is the first step. Without processing these painful memories, we just keep attracting the same people that essentially cause us to demonstrate or perform the same behaviors, connect to the same cycles. Alright? When we keep attracting the same people, you know, it's not gonna look the same in the beginning because we go through that beginning phase of meeting somebody new and telling ourselves that this time it's gonna be different, it's not gonna be the same, but what we're actually doing is taking the same toxic patterns from past relationships and shifting them into the new relationship. We say we want different, we want someone not going to treat us the same as before. However, when we ask the universe for someone better and we receive it, half the time we don't we don't know how to accept it because majority of the times it's something we've never had before, we've never experienced before. You know, someone who is genuinely a decent person, right? So we find reasons to push that person away. Think maybe they're too good for us, or we feel like we don't deserve someone like that, or we gotta find something that's wrong with them just so we can find reasons to cut off before the shoe drops, right? And they prove us right, they prove our theories or assumptions right when really what we're doing, which is self-sabotaging because our defense mechanism our defense mechanisms are that changed The light needs darkness at times just like a bear needs hibernation in a cave, darkness in order to restore their energy and to be stronger when they come out of the hibernation phase. They need darkness. So as you continue through your Chryslis phases, know that this is the most important step of them all. It is needed in order to grow better, stronger, with more clarity and understanding from compassion and empathy, not anger or hate. Not being able to process fully, not be able to really evaluate situations, relationships that we have experienced causes us to build hidden emotions that are not positive, resentment, a lot of things that are connected to those painful memories from the past that we carry to the next relationship, and then when we're triggered by something in the new relationship, that person gets oh.