I’m not alone in having experienced what many call a Dark Night of the Soul. What is a Dark Night?
A Dark Night is a personal crisis filled with existential despair. It’s a particularly painful time that feels like hitting rock bottom, a period so catastrophic mentally, physically, emotionally, and/or spiritually that one cannot continue on with business as usual. It’s a period of reckoning.
My Personal Rock Bottom
For me, it was the culmination of a slow spiral downward that was fueled by one bad decision after another. At the time, I didn’t blame my situation on myself, on the decisions I was making, the patterns I continued to cling to, and the bad habits that I refused to leave behind. I didn’t even know I had patterns and bad habits that were playing out in my daily life, piling up on top of each other until the weight if it shattered me into a million pieces…
In the summer of 2019, I was 4 years past a divorce and failed PhD that I hadn’t healed from. I’d lost all my friends and I was on the verge of losing my home because I’d lost my job. I was afraid that I would lose my young son.
I felt I had no one to turn to, no one to help. I had driven everyone away with my toxic behavior and negative attitude. I was consumed with fear, anger, despair, desperation, worry, and failure.
Those horrible feelings spilled over into how I treated people and with shame, I admit there were times I shouted at innocent strangers for getting my order wrong at a drive-thru. I just had nowhere to put all that pain, so I threw it around me at any poor soul unfortunate enough to enter the blast radius.
The only relief I felt was when I fantasized about death. It was the only way out I could see for myself.
It all became more than I could bear one evening. Alone in my darkened living room, I collapsed onto the floor. I just couldn’t hold myself up, couldn’t hold the weight of all I bore, a single second longer. Gut-wrenching, wracking sobs poured out of me. I curled up on myself and cried for all I’d lost and all I was in danger of losing – most especially myself.
For the first time in years, from the pit of that darkness I called out to the Universe, to God, to anyone who might hear. I begged for help.
And then I sat up. And I meditated.
I don’t know how long I sat there in the dark, how long I contemplated my place in the grand scheme of things and how I had failed at life, before a quiet message entered my consciousness: “We won’t let you fail. You belong here.”
I let the feel of those words infiltrate my psyche and a wave of relief washed through me. The release of emotion that spilled out of me on receiving that message was so immense, I instantly felt less burdened, like someone else had picked up part of the weight. In that precious moment, I felt held and I felt comforted and reassured of the rightness of my place in the All-That-Is.
Taking Responsibility for My Healing
That was the first of my major turning points. The second came just a couple of weeks later as I was flicking through channels on the television. I came across a documentary and flicked past after watching the trailer…but something made me pause and turn back.
That afternoon I watched the documentary called The Secret and the words I heard empowered me enough to take control and to begin the process of rebuilding my life into something that nourished me instead of something that was slowly killing me.
I’d like to say the rest is history, but for that first year afterward, and even parts of the second, as I sought teachers to give me the tools to do the rebuilding I needed, I had to fight those old patterns and bad habits. I worked every single second of the day to reprogram my negative thinking to positive thinking.
That was hard and many people have asked how I could have found the motivation and staying power to do that. I had no answer except to say that I simply didn’t have a choice. The way I used to live died for me on that late August night in 2019.
There was no going back. Period.
Gratitude as the Turning Point
By years two and three, it became clear to me the gift that was my Dark Night. Without it, I wouldn’t have found the impetus, the grit, and the motivation to begin again and to rebirth my life and a version of myself that I love. It took and it takes constant work to progress on the path but it gets easier every day if you stay with it, and the rewards are immeasurable!
Gratitude, freedom, happiness, self-love, healing…all of these are mine now and they have birthed within me, in turn, a deep well of compassion for others and a true understanding of the nature of our Creator and of the Oneness that all things in creation share. This understanding makes every single one of my days magical and miraculous. And I hope the same for all.
If any bit of this tale sounds familiar to you, if you’ve had your own Dark Night, if you’ve had many mini dark nights, if you’re unhappy with yourself and your life then know that that’s your sign.
Our feelings are a barometer for how close we are to our true selves and our true paths. If something gives us joy and happiness (and I’m not talking about feelings brought on by alcohol or drugs), then that’s a sign that we are resonating with our true life’s purpose.
Bad feelings and painful experiences of life mean we are not living in alignment with our greater purpose and that we need to start removing from our lives all of the obstacles to that.
One of the teachers I learned a lot from in those early years after my Dark Night is Michael B. Beckwith. He was featured in the documentary The Secret and I liked what he had to say so much that I sought out his books and borrowed the money to take his masterclass on MindValley called “Life Visioning Mastery”.
This was a valuable gift to myself because the act of working every day for 5 weeks on mini assignments and lectures helped me to stay focused daily on rebuilding myself and on really seeing those patterns and habits that had held me back for so long. One of the things he likes to say that hugely resonates with me and is so utterly the truth that I painted it on my wall is this: “The pain pushes until the vision pulls.”
“The pain pushes until the vision pulls.”
-Michael B. Beckwith
The pain is a tool, in other words. It’s that barometer I told you about. Learn to see it that way. Even today when I have a bad day, a bad week, a bad month (yes, I still do!) – it’s ALWAYS because I was doing something that didn’t serve me or I was avoiding doing something that would.
Don’t be afraid of the pain. Let it be your guide as much as your happy feelings are.
May all who find themselves in a crisis know that you are loved by the Universe. I PROMISE YOU that is TRUE! Heed the push of the pain (you don’t have to keep living with it!), follow your path a single step at a time, and let the vision of the life you want for yourself pull you forward into bliss.
Afterall, Dear Ones, bliss is our birthright. It belongs to every single one of us.
I love you. You’ve got this.
