In this first series of messages I’ve chosen for discussion we often find people in darkness, despair, disillusionment and doubt.

It isn’t by accident that I chose as I did. It’s important for all of us to face these four ‘d’s i.e. darkness, despair, disillusionment and doubt. Many of us find ourselves the most stuck, faithless and desperate (another ‘d’) when we are shown our own darkness, when doubt and disillusionment rise up, or when faced with the deepest of sorrows.

Yet moving through these ‘d’s, instead of shying away or trying to go around them, is not only necessary to our progression but empowers us to face any difficult emotion.

After reading some of your responses to the last post and on re-reading this next one, I could see that many of you resonated with the themes of hopelessness and despair.

The great news is that Padgett and his friends also give us a great road-map for moving through (not around) the four ‘d’s.

Here’s what I see:

Padgett encourages his friends to open up to God simply from a place of possibility of His love. He encourages them to take steps in faith. However he never does this in ignorance or denial of all of their current doubts and fears. He never belittles their struggles, nor tells them to ‘just get over it’. Yet I find many of us tell ourselves and others these kinds of messages when we encounter the four ‘d’s.

Padgett doesn’t lecture them on why their feelings aren’t valid; he asks them to consider truth and logic, and to try it out for themselves.

Using our will in a positive direction is vital if we are to move through the four ‘d’s.

Here’s our latest discussion of a message in the Great Experiment Series.

Click here to view the message in the next browser tab.

Can you see any other clues this message provides for dealing with doubt, despair, disillusionment and darkness?

Some More Practical Tips to Not Get STUCK in the Four ‘D’s

1. Acknowledge and Own the Feelings

Don’t try to tell yourself that they don’t exist, that their presence means that you aren’t spiritually evolved or that you should be over them by now.

Instead recognise these feelings as a signal from your soul that something needs healing.

When you judge your darkness, instead of examining it, this is your attempt to shut it down.

When you try to push away doubt, instead of really allowing it, you miss the opportunity to discover the real emotions of fear the doubt is covering. Doubt is often a place we use to hide from fear, but it gets depressing and depleting to live in. When we dig deeper into our doubt, then we discover our fear and can unlock the stuck place we have been enduring.

Despair and disillusionment are tough feelings – acknowledging them helps to uncover why they are there.

Ultimately you will need to grieve the causes for all of these feelings (you know that bit right), but I see that many of us fall down, get spirit influenced, and waste time on our spiritual journey when we know we aren’t getting to the causes yet. I see people start to push themselves hard to get there, instead of recognising that there are blocks (which are also feelings) that need to be worked through in order to completely release these causes. This work of releasing blocks is so vital and important, and pushing ourselves is the opposite of sitting with our resistance and allowing it to be felt.

Sitting with our resistance to our errors feels uncomfortable. That’s usually when the pushing, self-punishment or the denial starts. We want it over with, fixed and healed very quickly, or we try to talk ourselves out of the truth of it.

That’s because acknowledging we have a problem or error in our soul and realising that we are totally resisting the experience of this error can trigger other sets of emotions. Lots of childhood terrors of not being loved if we aren’t perfect, or aren’t performing can start to surface. The only answer I’ve found to combat this (and it’s a point that probably deserves an entire post of its own) is to practice compassion with self.

Recognise that these feelings are scary and painful and give yourself time and space to explore your soul. I see many of us treating ourselves worse than we would another person in the same situation. Ask yourself, how would I lovingly treat a child who came to me with the problem I find myself in? Treat yourself the same way.

Let me say categorically that pushing ourselves never helps.

Instead we can take positive steps to acknowledge the pain; know and be kind to ourselves and to pray for sincere desire to change.

2. Remind Ourselves of Truth

Many of the Padgett messages demonstrate spirits and Padgett himself speaking with others to remind them that their fears, doubts and worries are not in harmony with the way God’s Love or Universe works.

We can do the same thing for ourselves.

When disillusionment and despair loom, dark spirits love to get in on the act and reinforce really negative messages to us. Engaging very sincerely in prayer i.e. seeking Truth from God (rather than listening to messages from spirits in lower conditions) is perhaps the most important thing we can do in this situation.

 Along with this we can seeking out sources of truth on earth via the Padgett Messages, revisiting past lessons in love or big growth changes we have made in the past, talking to people who have a higher condition of love, or listening to a seminar on the issue we are struggling with.

The use of logic is very helpful in reminding ourselves of truth. The problem with fear – and it is fear that drives the existence of all four of the ‘d’s in our lives – is that it resists logic. Fear can’t continue to reign in an environment that upholds truth.

So we can decide to uphold lives and actions that honour truth. This will trigger us into releasing our fears and pain.

Our intellect can be a useful tool to remind ourselves of truth. Even if the truth has not entered our souls as yet, if we remind ourselves of the Truths we have faith in, or have simply heart, we can base our actions on these. This is a very important step in breaking the dominance of fear over our lives (and again there is much more I could say on the topic but today I’m just giving you the

Here is a very basic, practical and helpful exercise to help if you find yourself really stuck.

Divide your journal page into two columns. At the top of one column write ‘My Belief’, in the other ‘God’s Truth’.

Work your way down the page being very honest with yourself about your current beliefs around a certain issue. Instead of writing what you think your feelings or beliefs should be, write what you emotionally believe.

Examining your actions in the area you are exploring is helpful to discover what you really believe. For example, if I say that I believe that telling the truth is the most loving thing to do, and yet I continually avoid doing it – then I must consider that either I don’t feel its a loving act, or I don’t yet have a desire to love. What are the emotional beliefs that drive the actions?

Here are a few examples:

My Belief	God’s Truth
I’ll never be able to handle my shame, pain	God created me to be able to heal any injury
Acknowledging my fear and allowing it as physical experience in my body makes me a ‘weakling’. People will attack me more if I show I am afraid.	Allowing my fear liberates me from it. It is strength to acknowledge and experience fear bodily not weakness. Others can harm us less when we feel our fear. We are more able to respond in love and maintain our safety when we know and allow fear.
Telling the truth to others hurts them and is not loving them.	Telling the truth is an act of personal integrity – when we withhold truth and put on a façade we break God’s Laws of Love.Sharing truth enables the free will of others i.e. they are able to make more informed choices (Personal reflection after considering God’s Truth): When I don’t tell the truth its more about preventing my fear than about regard for their emotions.

Keep in mind that none of these strategies take the place of true emotional healing which is vital to our progress, however many of these things keep me away from negative influence and soften me to my fearful feelings.