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Are you feeling sad, depressed, disconnected and just plain uninspired by life, and you do not know why? Are you questioning the point of anything and everything? If this is the case, you could be going through a dark night of the soul. But things are not all bad. When you know what a dark night of the soul is and how to get through it as part of a spiritual awakening, your life can be completely transformed.
What Is A Dark Night Of The Soul?
A dark night of the soul is a period of disconnection and emptiness in which we feel completely separated and isolated from ourselves, other people and Source Consciousness.
The dark night of the soul can be seen as a negative thing. However, from a broader perspective, the opposite is true. The dark night of the soul serves two purposes:
- It is a soul awakening; and
- It is ego death.
As we experience a dark night of the soul, our soul is awakening and moving us forward, increasing our vibration into a new version of ourselves. At the same time, the ego and identity that has held us in our current form must undergo a death. It must come to the surface so we can acknowledge it, dissipate and dissolve it and let the current version of ourselves go to transmute and evolve into something more flexible. Only then can we move forward into the higher version of ourselves that our soul is creating.
A dark night of the soul is a process that allows us to face who and what we thought we were and let those thoughts and beliefs go. It helps us shed an old skin and an old identity to reveal what was underneath and be transformed into more of the essence of our soul.
In a dark night of the soul, you are in a temporary condition between an old and new version of you. It is the time and space required to recognise and let go of the old and find the new.
Learn more… “Soul Versus Ego | How To Tell The Difference”
7 Symptoms Of A Dark Night Of The Soul
The most significant symptom of a dark night of the soul is that life has no meaning or purpose. It is bland. There are no highs or lows. Basic tasks take a considerable effort to complete. A dark night of the soul is primarily psychological, and you feel lost with no idea where to go or what to do.
You may experience some or all of the following symptoms:
- Sadness | You feel a deep sense of sorrow with no particular reason why. You may feel despair at the state of your life or humanity and the world.
- Powerlessness | You may feel powerless and helpless in your life without any ability to change or control it.
- Lack of inspiration | You have little energy or desire to do anything, particularly the things that used to interest you. Nothing brings you joy anymore.
- Disconnection | You feel isolated and alone like nobody understands you. You feel like you do not belong and something is missing.
- Unworthiness | You feel that you are not enough, not good enough and unworthy of the things that other people may have or that you do or once desired.
- Suffering | You feel trapped and condemned to a life of emptiness or suffering without relief.
- Lack of will and self-control | You find it difficult to act and move forward.
A dark night of the soul can be mistaken for clinical depression. But it is not the same thing. It is more of spiritual depression.
Regular depression often focuses on the self. The depression or melancholy that comes with a dark night of the soul is more about the more significant, more philosophical questions in life. It considers things like “what is the meaning of life?” “Why am I here?” and “what is my purpose?”
The difference between a dark night of the soul and regular depression is that when depression ends, not much changes. When a dark night of the soul ends, everything in your life is transformed.
What Is The Point Of A Dark Night Of The Soul?
Many people may approach the dark night of the soul as something to fix, get through, or overcome.
However, a true dark night of the soul is something that changes you forever. When you get to the end of a dark night of the soul, you will realise that something has disappeared from you, but for the better.
Experiencing a dark night of the soul is necessary for spiritual awakening and evolution.
Spiritual awakening is a process of spiritual evolution. It is waking up to the truth of the world and ourselves and the light and darkness that exists within. Not everyone goes through a dark night of the soul, but it is common.
When we see the light of the world and ourselves, everything is blissful. However, we must experience and understand the opposite to understand one polarity. We must experience and understand the dark to understand and know the light.
The soul jumps ahead and attempts to drag all parts of us with it. To match the new vibration of the soul, we must go through dissolving the ego and the aspects of us that do not match that vibration.
The dark night of the soul forces the ego and hidden parts of us to come to the surface so we can face them, dissolve them and move into the higher vibration of our soul.
The dark night happens for you and by you. It is your higher self and soul pulling you along. Everything is ok. You need to stay balanced and acknowledge the process as the old soul disintegrates.
As challenging as it is, you can go through this process, as many people have before you. Just remember that everything is temporary.
Learn more… “ What Does A Spiritual Awakening Look Like?”
How Long Does A Dark Night Last?
A dark night of the soul lasts as long as it needs to.
Some people never experience a dark night of the soul. For others, it may take weeks, months or even years. You may experience one dark night of the soul or many over a long period.
Your soul decides when you need to experience a night of the soul, how long it will take and when you are ready to exit. A dark night might appear when your soul is prepared to evolve to a new level, and the ego is fighting to maintain and hold onto the status quo.
Your soul may shift to a new level and your ego may have to dissolve. Your transformation may occur in small steps, or all at once.
My Personal Dark Night
For myself, I experienced maybe 3 or 4 big dark nights over about ten years. I did not understand what I was experiencing most of them. I fought against the reality I was experiencing, denying my emotions and trying to force myself to overcome them and take my life back to the way it was.
This was my ego fighting against the evolution and awakening of my soul.
This fight against the process extended the process much longer than it needed to be and kept me in a place of suffering and powerlessness for months on end.
The first dark night of the soul is the longest and most difficult. Once you know what it is, it becomes easier to navigate.
With each dark night, I learned to resist less and less and began to apply techniques that I had learned about letting go and easing resistance. It was not until the most recent dark night that I understood what was happening from many different perspectives. I allowed myself to drop into the process, let it happen and use the tools I had learned. As a result, I could move through it faster and get to the other side.
3 Ways To Get Through It Faster And Easier
The key thing to understand is you cannot force the process of spiritual awakening and the dark night of the soul. It is an opportunity to clear what you need to, lift your vibration and evolve into a new version of you. Your soul will determine when you have done enough inner work to raise your vibration, exit the dark night and move forward.
You can choose to experience a dark night of the soul with resistance and fight or peace and calm.
You can do several things to experience a dark night of the soul with more ease.
01 Surrender | The first tip is to surrender and drop any resistance to the process. What you avoid will keep repeating.
To resist something or someone is pushing it away. When you resist or push against something, it will push back with equal and opposite force.
The only way through a dark night of the soul is to walk into a dark night, not around it.
02 Inner Work | The second tip is to understand that what we are experiencing externally is a reflection of what is happening internally. We cannot change the outside world, and instead must change ourselves.
We must find the courage to choose to turn inwards, do the inner work and face all the aspects of ourselves we have hidden for so long. Anything arising during a dark night in the form of thoughts or emotions is because it needs to be resolved.
Embrace the pain rather than avoid it. This will dissolve it rather than prolong it.
We need to acknowledge the thoughts and emotions that arise and start to reconcile any conflicts between the new evolution of the soul and the old version of our ego and identity. We must work to integrate these parts and evolve the ego towards a higher vibration that matches the soul.
03 See The Big Picture | The final tip is to work to see the bigger picture and reason for a dark night of the soul. When you understand what it is and why it is happening this can be much easier.
We must try to see a perspective of the experience, not just from our human view of a person in suffering and despair. We must try to connect to ourselves and our souls and remind ourselves that everything is temporary. Everything is in a state of flux. Things are always better, evolved and lighter on the other side of a dark night.
We must learn to trust that our soul and higher self are always acting in our best interests.
We can begin to ask ourselves the following sorts of questions:
- What is the reason for this experience?
- What will happen on the other side of this experience?
- Who is the person and life that will exist after this experience?
- What does my higher self and soul want for me to learn and experience from this so I can grow?
Learn more… “The 5 Stages Of Spiritual Awakening | Where Are You At?”
Dark Night Of The Soul And Spiritual Awakening
The dark night of the soul is a part of spiritual awakening. It is not something to be feared or avoided.
When we understand the soul’s dark night and how to get through it, we can breathe much easier. We know the suffering, darkness and lack of purpose are temporary and lead to something far more significant on the other side.
We can face a dark night of the soul with courage and strength or with resistance, fight and denial.
We can allow the ego to try to keep us where we are or bring it along for the ride.
Either way, our soul is on the other side waiting for us to catch up and will sit it out for as long as it takes.
How you get there is up to you.
The choice is yours…
…Liz Watt