A spiritual meltdown and a realization that leads to grief.
A few years ago, something happened to me that was so catastrophic that I lost all hope. I lost faith in the universe. Any interest and excitement I’d ever had about anything seemed to disappear. I felt like I’d died inside — but in reality, only my ego died and left the shell of a person that I needed to reinvent. And that is when my “new life” began.
People associate the term “ego death” with varying definitions, and I don’t agree with all of them. However, one thing that is true is that it involves grief. It’s the same kind of grief that happens to you when a person close to you dies. But what’s happening instead is that you died. Your old self imploded, and the new self hasn’t yet arrived. You’re in a void.
Let me explain.
The Void Inside
In this process of ego death, you’ve stopped caring about everything you cared about before. It’s terrifying to have nothing to occupy the mind in day-to-day life, as most people do. It’s all you’ve ever known until now. But this experience brings a kind of emptiness that cannot adequately be expressed in words.
You could be content while meditating and removed from society, but as a human, you must still care about something in the world. So, you feel untethered as you realize you don’t care anymore — attachments to any future outcomes are gone.
It almost feels like you’re naked, in a way, because the coverings of your soul are all gone. The ego has slipped off, and the costume that clothed this character you’re playing has disappeared.
Ego Death and Rebirth
The birthing process of the “new you” can be unimaginably painful. You still have to live in the world, after all. The mundane life is still all around you, and you have to fit in.
You don’t care about most of the things you cared about before. However, you are visibly the same person to the people who know you. And likely, most of them won’t understand what you’re going through.
You have to find a new way forward. You’re someone new, and you must integrate this new persona into society. In the long run, you’ll see that this kind of awakening is good for humanity, and you can do great things with your newly aligned self. But the road to this becoming realized is long and arduous.
Making Up Reasons to Be Alive
Part of this ego death process is making up things to care about. At least for me, it felt like I needed to invent reasons to live in order to keep going. If I really gave in to the “ego death” and surrendered to the void, I would disappear, and nobody would ever hear from me again. I’d be useless as a human being.
I am not ready to die or to be committed to a mental institution, so I politely and obediently attach myself to things that most people care about, like goals in the future and relationships. One of the biggest things that kept me cheerful to be alive was the idea of going to Disney World every year, as petty as that sounds. I just needed something to look forward to, or I’d be nothing.
I could be nothing. Nothing isn’t a bad state of existence. But it’s hard to do when you’re a parent or you’re trying to relate to other people. I could definitely make it work if I were a hermit living in the mountains on my own. But life is funny; I find myself part of a society I can’t easily escape.
The Persona I Created
After I began looking forward to future outcomes, I started to attach myself to the idea that I could find love again. I planned other vacations. I indulged in stupid temporary physical pleasures to distract myself, like everyone else does. But once in a while, the fact that my ego died becomes clear again.
I remember that on that fateful day, something wild happened, and I was reborn. I left all my attachments to life behind. Everything since that point in time doesn’t feel real. It was the inception point of my current existence and persona. Since then, it feels like I have just been making it up as I go in order to survive.
I realize that I need these stories I wove for my persona. Without them, I fall apart. I need to be useful in the world and to behave like other humans. So, I continue to make up stories about who I am in order to stay alive. Do you relate to this?
How to Live Like This
You must walk among humanity feeling like you don’t belong. You may know who you’re supposed to be, but you don’t want to be that, and you may be incredibly uncomfortable as you attempt to express the new version of you that is coming into being. It can feel scary because this new version of you could be rejected, and it may even ruin other people’s lives. (At least, you will perceive it so.)
If you’re looking for advice, all I can say is that balance is key. We must all learn to value physical life as a human; at the same time, we value our soul’s journey. The ego may feel like it’s slipped off, and we’re exposed as nothing but energetic balls of light existing here without expectations.
To live as a human being, you may sometimes have to pretend that you care about things that the rest of the collective cares about. After all, this whole life as an incarnated soul is nothing but a make-believe game.
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The Dark Night of the Soul is one of the most challenging times in a spiritual journey. Learn how to survive it and use it for the greater good.
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