What is The Dark Night of the Soul?

Hi,

This is Robert.

Thanks for listening to this talk on the Dark Night of the Soul.

This is about finding your way through the scariest and most precious moment of your life.

Sooner or later,

We will all be broken by life.

The lost job.

The career failing.

Relationships end.

Heartbreak.

Divorce with all of its warts.

The loss of the loved.

Mom,

Dad,

A sibling,

Or a son or daughter.

The death of your best friend,

Who may have been a cat or a dog.

Loss can come out of nowhere.

A rug pulled out from under you in such a way that you no longer know which way is up.

The energy from a triggering event can be too much,

Overwhelming the system.

Suddenly there exists a massive doubt about who you thought you were.

Perhaps realizing that life has been lived inauthentically.

The identity that you once knew has been lifted,

Exposing you in a way that feels naked.

There may be hopelessness,

Despair,

Groundlessness,

Meaning all that you knew about yourself or the world has been yanked from beneath you.

The sense of self flipped on its head.

Where do you stand?

How do you stand?

What or who do you hold on to?

So disorienting.

Everything seems backwards,

Terrifying.

The sense of confusion and helplessness are palpable.

You feel shook to your core.

You wonder if you can go on.

This is the dark night of the soul.

Sometimes when you're in a dark place,

You think you've been buried,

But you've actually been planted.

Christine Kane.

Whatever it was that brought you here did so because you needed to visit.

Finding yourself in what feels like the lowest of the low is a sign of the necessity for change.

Change in the direction of growth.

The dark night of the soul is an invitation to look deeper into your habits,

Your conditioning,

Your values,

Your perspectives,

And ultimately your relationship with yourself.

A time to restructure how you view yourself and how you relate to others.

Despite how shitty it feels,

This is an inflection point toward health and healing.

Shinzen Young said it's like falling into the pit of the void,

Having deep,

Authentic insights,

But not being able to handle them.

Jennifer Wright says,

People talk about caterpillars becoming butterflies as though they just go into a cocoon,

Slap on wings,

And are good to go.

Caterpillars have to dissolve into a disgusting pile of goo to become a butterfly.

So if you're a mess wrapped in blankets right now,

Keep going.

The dark night of the soul opens us to illumination.

To get through it,

One must go slow,

Very slow.

Marissa Handler talks about being in the middle of it,

And all that's needed is to survive.

Let me say that again.

All that's needed is to survive it.

One day at a time,

One hour,

One minute.

This is a time for surrender.

This means being with things as they are,

Not how you think they should be.

Doing nothing can be healing.

Your past,

Your conditioning needs to be metabolized.

This is especially true for those of us who have suffered from attachment wounds,

And those of us who are chronically living in a state of threat,

Anxiety,

Constantly doing,

Trying to become someone or achieve someone,

And never feeling safe in one's body.

Getting through this is taking a plunge into the unknown.

It's making friends with the fear,

The uncertainty,

And the doubt.

Doing nothing,

Being with the darkness,

And the raw new insights may go against all that you've known.

You'd rather do anything to avoid sitting with these new uncomfortable truths.

The discomfort will feel absurd.

This is why surviving this requires a heavy dose of self-compassion.

As the Buddha said,

You yourself,

As much as anybody in the entire universe,

Deserve your love and affection.

This means talking to yourself as you would talk to a friend who's going through the same thing.

You'd hit them with some truth bombs.

This too shall pass.

This is not a reflection of you being a bad person.

You're human,

And life is fucking difficult.

You're going through it right now,

But you'll emerge from this prouder than you've ever been of yourself.

You don't need to be perfect.

You don't need to have a perfect life.

I love you.

Keep going.

In summary,

What is the dark night of the soul?

The dark night is a period of intense grief and then an opening to new insights that shake up the system.

It is recognizing the lack of solidity,

The truth of impermanence,

The reality that I lack control,

The death of an old identity,

A burying of the old me and the ways I used to relate to others,

A funeral for the way I used to think about myself.

These insights are new openings.

Initially,

They cause quite the disturbance,

A feeling of being completely destabilized.

However,

With time,

Easing slowly into the depths of it all with an attitude of healthy surrender and a lot of self-compassion,

You will emerge from it,

Not unscathed,

But battle-wounded and tender and more wise and more hopeful.

A different version of who you were,

A healthier version,

An uplifted,

Tender,

Imperfect,

Raw and compassionate new you.

Well done.

If you're going through it right now,

Please keep going.

Please reach out to someone.

Please find safety in your body or in nature.

Please be kind to yourself.

Please remember impermanence applies to this too.

Please just survive.

Thank you.