As I steer myself through a dark cloud of existential dread, I brace myself for the turbulence I cannot avoid any longer. No surface-level, mundane activity seems to bring me joy anymore. It’s exciting because I am releasing attachments, but it’s scary because I have defined my life through these attachments for years. Who am I and what do I do now? This experience is unprecedented. There is no roadmap for transcendence. Ascension is a solitary journey.
We must stay humble as we journey through a vast expanse that we aren’t meant to understand. And when the path gets exceptionally hard to walk, the most self-aware of us sometimes fall into a void: a dark night of the soul begins. That’s where I’m at now.
Will you enter into the void with me for a moment so I can show you how I navigate the dark night of the soul? I have been here before. I have figured out why it happens and what it’s trying to teach me. I know a few things that have helped me as I go into the darkness again and again — a place I know that none of us are meant to stay.
Learning to Let Go
Life is a school, and the universe constantly sends us lessons. When they get very intense, they sometimes overwhelm us. That’s because often, the lesson we need to learn is to let go. If we hang on tightly, it becomes incredibly painful when we are forced to do so.
The goal is to surrender the attachment and live in the present moment.
We are shown repeatedly by the universe that we have very little control over our lives. The goal of the discomfort is for us to shed attachments to expectations of outcomes, relationships, and material possessions, but the ego fights back hard. If we could just learn to let go effortlessly, we would spare ourselves so much suffering.
So, I take my previous learnings from the darkness and try to be better each time I find myself there again. That means I have to release the attachments before I am forced to do so by the universe. I have to try to be more fluid and malleable — allowing anything to just be. Total acceptance.
The Portal to the Light
Nobody likes to be uncomfortable. When I am in the dark night of the soul, I feel a pain that is incredibly hard to embody. And yet, I have learned that the fear and the pain are portals to a new state of consciousness. My salvation exists within the problem itself.
Somewhere in the center of the darkness, there is a doorway. I usually distract myself from the fear — making excuses in my mind that allow me to avoid facing it. But during the dark night of the soul, I no longer try to redirect my mind. I see no point in fighting the darkness, so it descends upon me and swallows me whole. I have no choice but to face the discomfort.
Instead of running from the discomfort, I go straight to the center.
When I enter my fear and allow my mind to soak it up, something magical happens. Going to the center of it allows me to find an opening. As I sit in my pain, I enter a place of acceptance. It is blissful. Going to the center of the fear actually opens a portal to peace.
It’s a paradox, but embodying the discomfort makes it disappear. Positioning myself right in the middle of it creates light. There is no other choice there but to finally let go. The beauty of life opens up before me.
Lose Everything and You Gain Everything
When you face the discomfort and finally let go, there’s nothing to hold on to and nothing to distract you. There is also nothing left to worry about because worry was only allowing you to be distracted from the discomfort. It was a defense mechanism. Instead, entering the fear itself solves everything. It diffuses the problem. By embodying the pain, you dissolve it.
The dark night of the soul is a difficult place to be. It is part of a spiritual awakening and an exercise in letting go. All things must be allowed to crumble to your feet before you can rebuild. Attachments to mundane, surface-level desires and goals only hinder your spiritual path. As you ascend, you will be faced with no choice but to lose everything.
The dark night of the soul is a portal to a higher awakening.
As I make space in my life by releasing attachments, it is scary because I feel like I have nothing left. I enter the void. Nothing excited me anymore like it used to. But I know it’s all for my highest good because I’ve seen it happen before. I have transformed several times in my life. I know that I must lose everything before I can become something new. I embrace the dark night of the soul as a portal toward my higher destiny.
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Emily is a writer, coach, intuitive reader, and content creator with a background in philosophy.
Very interesting!