The night and the darkness
What The Dark Night of the Soul Really Feels Like
Being devoured and becoming one with the darkness
It’s Many Dark Nights
The dark night of the soul isn’t just one night, it is hundreds of dark nights. It’s many darker nights where the ego goes to battle against the soul. It is a period of spiritual crisis or emergency where the ego is dying and losing control of the steering wheel. There’s a total disconnect from God and a sinking feeling as you fall deep into the nothingness where all that’s left is emptiness.
Every night gets darker and darker until you disappear and become one with the darkness. There’s no switch. There’s no light when you pray and none when you smile.
You feel depressed and not the physical kind that happens as a result of negative thought patterns or losing something that meant a lot to you, but the kind that can’t be treated because it can’t even be explained. It makes you feel even more alone to not have anyone around who understands what’s happening.
There’s a sense of sadness that knocks you out and you may feel lost; like you’re far away from a place where the people love you. The joy in your life disappears and you lose interest in the things that once brought you joy.
The dark night of the soul brings feelings of unworthiness. You may feel as if you’re undeserving of a better life because of the mistakes you’ve made. You’ll have nobody to blame but you and it’ll become clear how everything that has happened is a result of the choices you’ve made.
When you look ahead, all you see is a dark cave that is disconnected from everything and everyone. Every day there’s a growing sense of despair. You grow powerless, weary, and hopeless. You see no sign of hope and you accept no one is coming to save you and it’s up to you to find the light.
If we never experience the chill of a dark winter, it is very unlikely that we will ever cherish the warmth of a bright summer’s day. Nothing stimulates our appetite for the simple joys of life more than the starvation caused by sadness or desperation ― Anthon St. Maarten.
The Night is The Messenger
There’s no growth when you can’t see and acknowledge where you’ve been and the life you’ve lived. The dark night is a sign that you can’t continue living the way you’ve been living. It’s a sign that something in your life needs to change, let go of, or disintegrated. It’s a sign that something needs to be addressed and something that is blocking your path must be unblocked, dislodged, or cleared away so you can begin your life afresh. The dark night is the path of initiation. You are being subject to darkness so you can understand the element of light.
Life doesn’t feel good when you realize that the one thing you need the most is desperately missing from your life. You may have lost a person, place, or thing and it triggered an awakening within you where you are made to see where you went wrong on your journey. You start questioning life and your existence and finding the answers feels like finding drops of water in the ocean.
You feel lost, scared, and all alone. You lose touch with God and have to wrap your head around a godless existence. An existence with no higher or greater purpose. A meaningless life. You may think that if there’s a God, He would have come by now. He would have wiped your tears away. But you finish praying, open your eyes and find that it's still darkness all around you. If God was really your father, He would have provided for you.
You may lose faith when the pain takes over. It may feel like the ground beneath you is being removed and the mind will try to convince you that the end is near. That the Lord is angry and going to cut you off from your people or put you to death. The mind will want to find answers so it can protect and bring structure to your day-to-day life, but you’ll find that the mind and your reasoning are shallow compared to the depths of the eyes of your soul.
My desire to live is as intense as ever, and though my heart is broken, hearts are made to be broken: that is why God sends sorrow into the world… To me, suffering seems now a sacramental thing, that makes those whom it touches holy – Oscar Wilde.
The Purpose of The Darkness
When nothing brings you joy, it’ll be easy for you to recognize pure joy. When your mind is troubled, your thoughts are fearful and your feelings follow your thoughts, which sends you into anxiety, it’ll be easy for you to recognize clarity when you find it. It’s terrifying watching the ground beneath your feet slipping from under you, but it teaches you to firmly ground your feet. It teaches you to hold on.
When it feels like you’re cursed, you’ll easily recognize blessings when they come your way. When the night is darkest and nothing makes sense, you’re ready to be transformed. Like the butterfly emerging from the dark chrysalis, you’ll be ready to spread your wings and fly.
The dark night is the greatest messenger because it shows you what’s outdated, weak, expired, fragile, and decayed. When you remove all that is outdated, weak, expired, fragile, and decayed, the emptiness within you can be refilled. When all that doesn't belong is removed, you're left with all that is you — pure, peaceful, and joyful.
You’ll see the little flickering light in your soul and when you flip the switch, you become a candle in the night. You become the light in the darkness and you set the stage for an encounter with the divine at any moment as you witness the end of the tunnel. This requires a leap of faith into the unknown, which will be sudden and frightening, but it won’t be dark.
You’ll have the lessons the darkness came to teach you to guide your path. Your pain will grow you to a point where you won’t recognize the person in the mirror, but it’ll be a brand new start to write a better story. It’ll be the chance to create a life that feels good soulfully.
The dark night brings disconnection so you can know what connection really is. You get lost so you can find your way back home. The experience comes so you can make your own meaning about life and your existence.
For further reading:
📖 3 Reasons You’re in a Never-Ending Dark Night of The Soul 📖 5 Signs You’re Going Through a Spiritual Awakening 📖 The 6 Life-Altering Stages of a Spiritual Awakening 📖 The 3 Stages of the Spiritual Journey No One Talks About 📖 3 Reasons You Can’t Trust Your Soul
