My Dark Night Of The Soul

Hello so I thought I would write about something that’s been a really strange experience for me recently. I have been going through my own Dark night of the soul which has been really difficult and I’m hoping maybe someone will understand what I’m going through by writing about this.

What is Dark night of the soul?

So what is it? Dark night of the soul is something that people experience after a big event in someone’s life, good or bad such as a death, a break up or a spiritual awakening.

It is a period of time where there is no presence of God or spiritual guidance, it is an extremely painful time that can last months or years in some cases. It can sometimes feel like you are in a deep depression, you might really lost in your life and almost ‘missing a soul’ or any purpose for life. You might feel like you’ve ‘lost your spirituality or connection to God’ but it is in fact the opposite.

We go through a Dark night of the soul because it is a journey to becoming a higher, better version of yourself and spirit. It’s entering a new phase of life that you will be ready for. It may feel like your going backwards I’m life until your dark night of the soul ends and you enter this new phase.

My Dark of the soul

Okay I only recently realised that this is what I’m experiencing and I’m still going through it. I don’t know when I will come out the other side and it’s been a really difficult process so far.

So I noticed that I had been feeling depressed a lot more often since I moved into my own place in June last year, I’ve never been very good at processing change even if it’s something I created. I still felt a connection to spiritually but lost interest in crystals, herbalism, nature or my spell work.

My Nan passing away in October last year is what I believe caused my Dark night of the soul because I’ve not been the same since that day. I know that’s a normal emotion when your dealing with grief and that’s what I thought I was experiencing but I’m starting to recognise that I’m going through a dark night of the soul.

My experience so far

So my experience so far has been really strange as I’ve not really known what’s been happening to me. I lost my Nan in October and my depression got far worse after then which is expected when you lose someone you love.

I have never wanted to write about these topics on my blog but I also want to be honest about my experience so I was struggling with suicide ideation which I haven’t dealt with for about 6 years when I was last seriously depressed. Luckily I have reached out to a mental health service for support because I know that’s a symptom of depression and not my reality.

So because of my depression I have had such a strong, overwhelming feeling of just being lost and not understanding what my purpose is. I had started a course in October to become a Spiritual counsellor but I had to pause my course in January because of financial difficulties which I think didn’t help me because that was the only thing I felt I had that was giving me a purpose or passion in life.

I also unfortunately stopped finding a reason to keep writing on this blog because I felt like I have nothing to write about. I felt like I had lost my creative or passion to write because I wasn’t just stuck in this dark mental state that I couldn’t seem to get out.

Personal changes

So this was a real sign for me that I was going through some shift because in January I started to process a lot of trauma for when I was a child for the first time. I was a foster care child and I think I have always disconnected from that experience as if I watched it happen in a movie to different child instead of just accepting what happened and sending love to my younger self. so that had been a huge development for me and I hope anyone reading this who has been through childhood trauma or any trauma understands this and it maybe helps them step towards processing what they went through.

The other thing I have been experiencing which happened only a few days ago on the 5th March. So I woke up at 4am on Sunday and for some reason I clicked on this podcast (I’m not going to name the podcast) and the episode was about an ex energy healer who ended up turning to Christianity after an “epiphany” that what she was doing was wrong or ‘evil’.

This may be very controversial and strong emotions come up for every spiritual person when it comes to this subject but it really affected me and I couldn’t shake this women’s story and I still am struggling with it.

I have always been the quirky, different person that prefers to sit alone talking to trees since a young child and my family always loves to remind me of this! So as a child I was looking into conspiracy theories, aliens, and I’ve always believed in ghosts.

When I was 17 years old I got introduced to spirituality, it’s been an incredible, terrifying, fun, overwhelming, life changing experience so far but when I listened to this podcast, everything sort of fell apart and I started questioning everything I believe in.

When I found spirituality I was really depressed and I truly believe that spirituality saved me life, I thought I had nothing to live for and then all of a sudden I discovered this world that just lit a fire underneath me to find my passion.

Unfortunately I had a revelation the other day that I don’t know what I believe because this woman on this podcast made me realise that I don’t believe in much of spirituality and it doesn’t make much sense, especially manifestation and meditation.

So now I’m sort of going through an existential crisis as I’m realising I put all my interests and everything I’m passionate about into spirituality and now I’m questioning the very thing that makes me who I am. This also has a ripple effect into whether or not I continue my Spiritual counselling course, continuing this blog which is mostly spirituality, who I am and what I truly believe in.

This is when I realised something else must be going on and I connected the dots as questioning and loosing your spirituality is a big part of a Dark night of the soul.

So I’m not sure what’s next for me or where I’m going to end up at the end of this, I’m processing a lot, I’ve realised that one thing that connects all of these things is a feeling is change, my spiritual beliefs are changing, my mindset is changing, my past trauma is changing, what I’m passionate about is changing and my view of life is changing, and the most ironic part of this is that the one thing I hate most is change, nothing is in my control, only how I react and process it.

So I wrote this blog post because I hope there is maybe someone out there who reads this that is going through something similar and can relate to my experience right now and maybe help me understand what I’m going through a bit better!

Dark nights of the soul are painful times in someone’s life and sometimes cause everything to be shaken up, but the dark doesn’t exist without the light and it’s just a transitional period to come into a better version of yourself.

I don’t know when I will write another blog post because I have no clue what to write about at the moment but I will come back to this eventually. Thank you for reading.