The Dark Night Of The Soul

Blessings and welcome to the path to freedom.

This beautiful,

Magnificent,

Absolutely wonderful path where we get to set ourselves free from fear and from worry and from doubt and these lower vibrations where we get to set ourselves free to soar to be in ever expanding love and joy and harmony and beauty and abundance and wholeness and creativity and intelligence and all these yummy qualities.

My name is Daniel Roqueo and thank you so so much for tuning in,

For listening,

For participating whenever,

Wherever you are and whoever you are.

I'm very grateful that you are here.

Today we are talking about something that is called the dark night of the soul and it's various levels.

So we are and this is something that we inevitably as we're walking this beautiful path of freedom and awakening coming into more expanded realizations as to who and what we are.

That we are unique,

Perfect,

Whole and complete emanations of God.

That we are not the small and unlimited thought patterns or beliefs or stories or whatever the case may be that we may have believed ourselves to be.

That we are none of that but we are something infinitely vaster.

So much greater,

So much more magnificent,

So much more luminous,

So much more radiant,

So much more loving and kind and compassionate.

So much more peaceful,

So much more joyful than we've ever,

Ever,

Ever experienced.

I mean this happens gradually.

It doesn't always and rarely happen overnight but it still happens that we come into this expanded awareness of who and what we are.

And as we're moving along this path,

As we continue to just like a snake sheds its skin,

As we continue to grow,

To unfold,

To expand,

There's a continuous rebirth happening.

When we move into just like the butterfly that is moving into the chrysalis,

Into the cocoon,

Going through the metamorphosis only to emerge as a butterfly.

And what happens in that chrysalis,

What happens in doing that metamorphosis is that the caterpillar ceases to exist.

So it moves into the chrysalis and at some point new cells actually begin to emerge within the caterpillar.

Now initially the immune system of the caterpillar kills these cells off because they're perceived as threats.

They are foreign to the caterpillar.

So the caterpillar's immune system kills them off.

But these new cells,

They begin to proliferate to the point where the caterpillar's immune system is overrun.

And in that overrunning,

The caterpillar ceases to exist.

It dissolves,

It liquefies and the butterfly begins to emerge.

So one creature is crawling into the cocoon.

A completely different creature is flying out of it,

Emerging out of it.

And this is a beautiful metaphor to the dark night of the soul.

And it has different gradations to it.

There are different,

Not dimensions,

Different levels of it.

Because this is what happens.

As we grow,

As we continuously die to who we used to be,

To how we used to move in the world,

What happens is that the ego temporarily goes blind.

As the new is emerging,

The old doesn't recognize the new.

So there's that space of confusion in which the old is dissolving and the new is emerging,

But the old hasn't quite dissolved and the new hasn't quite emerged.

So there's a space of confusion.

And the lowest levels or the lowest gradations of the dark night of the soul is just that,

A space of confusion.

I don't quite recognize myself.

I'm not feeling all that well.

I'm not feeling on top of the world.

There's something going on within me.

Perhaps we're feeling a little bit more exhausted.

We don't have the power and the strength and the energy that we perhaps used to have.

We don't have that and we're feeling kind of agitated,

Restless,

Irritable.

Not as kind,

Not as forgiving,

Not as compassionate as before,

Not as loving as before.

And then we have the higher levels where this space of confusion,

It gets longer and it gets darker to the point where we end up in a space where everything that we used to believe,

Everything that we thought we knew,

We no longer know.

Everything we thought we knew about ourselves,

About life,

About God,

We know nothing of it at all.

It's like we've been completely severed,

Completely cut off from light,

From love,

From joy.

And the dark night of the soul,

It can last for brief moments and it can last for long,

Long periods.

There have been spaces that I've moved through that have lasted for like a day.

And then there have been spaces that have lasted,

Not that many though,

That have lasted for weeks and even months.

And while it's not at all pleasant,

Especially the more severe,

Is not the right word really,

But I can't think of another word,

The more severe spaces of the dark night.

I think I've only been through one or twice of those where it was like someone turned off the light and it got pitch dark.

I didn't believe in anything anymore.

I knew that I used to believe in something.

I knew what I used to believe in.

I knew what I used to know to be true,

But I didn't know it.

It was pitch,

Pitch dark.

And it lasted,

I don't remember for how long,

A couple of weeks maybe.

And it's not at all pleasant.

It's not at all comfortable.

It's not at all enjoyable being in this space.

Ever.

It is such a blessing.

It is such a blessing.

The darker it gets,

The greater the leap.

So the darker this dark night is,

When it is pitch dark,

Then we know that when we emerge as the butterfly,

We're gonna emerge at a completely different space than the space we went into the dark night through.

When it's only a little slight confusion,

Slight discomfort,

The expansion is not gonna be that great.

It's still a blessing.

It's still a gift.

But it's not gonna be that great.

So being forewarned about what is awaiting us.

And I remember the first times I went into these spaces.

I didn't know what was going on.

It felt so wrong.

And I desperately tried to figure out what had happened.

I wanted to fix it.

I wanted to make it right.

I wanted to get back to the space that I was before.

Even with all the drama,

Even with all the turmoil and the stories and beliefs and all of that.

Being in that was better than being in this space where nothing is familiar.

Where nothing feels joyous when everything is yucky.

But then I emerged and over time as I've been through these spaces many times,

I now know that there's nothing for me to do other than just be,

Allow,

Embrace and allow this space to be what it is because it is what it is.

That I will emerge.

We will make it through.

There's a beautiful statement that brings some comfort and that brings some guidance as to how to navigate through these dark nights of the soul.

I believe it was coined by Dr.

Howard Thurman where he said that we navigate by the light we once knew.

We navigate by the light we once knew.

And what this means is that even though we perhaps do not feel our connection with Spirit,

Even though we perhaps no longer believe that we are worth squat,

That life is worth living at all,

We lean into what we used to know,

What we used to trust before someone turned off the light.

So we get to navigate by the compass and by the map that we used to navigate with.

Even though we perhaps do not feel it,

We're not feeling it,

But we still can lean into the memory of how we used to navigate,

In which direction we were moving.

So we just keep on moving.

Being gentle,

Being kind,

Being loving towards ourselves,

Obviously,

Tending to our needs,

Embracing and allowing it,

Trusting that even this,

Even in this space of not feeling good,

Progress is happening.

Expansion is happening.

Chemicalization is happening,

Which is another word for it.

We're being transformed.

And transformation is sometimes messy.

It is sometimes messy.

This path that we are on,

It is not all smiles.

It is not eternal bliss.

It is ever-expanding joy,

It is ever-expanding bliss,

Yes,

Absolutely.

But we are moving through spaces that are not at all pleasant.

But the dark night of the soul,

It is truly a blessing.

The confusion that happens when the ego loses its ability to navigate and to recognize,

It is a blessing because it is actually and literally the ego dying.

The egoic sense of self diminishing,

Dissolving.

So as we're moving through this space,

Just like the caterpillar ceases to exist,

The we that were,

Cease to exist only to allow for something brighter,

More luminous,

Greater,

Grander to emerge.

So all this to say,

When we're moving through the dark night,

It is not a bad thing.

It is not,

Well,

I was gonna say that it is not something to avoid.

We cannot.

We cannot.

As we're moving along this path,

Sooner or later we'll all be called into the dark night and we are wise to not resist it but to embrace it,

Knowing that it is good in progress.

So thank you so,

So much for tuning in,

For listening.

Until the next time,

I absolutely bless,

Bless,

Bless your day and I absolutely bless,

Bless,

Bless your way,

Knowing that all is well,

Even in the dark night,

Knowing that something wonderful is happening,

Even in the dark night,

Knowing that everything is working for your good,

Even moving through the dark night.

With much love,

Many blessings.

Namaste.