Out of suffering have emerged the strongest Souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
– Khalil Gibran
At some point, most of us spiritual wanderers, seekers, and lone wolves go through a phenomenon known as the Dark Night of the Soul.
Although we try to run from it, it is still there. Although we try to cover it up and smother it, it is still there. Although we try to put on a happy, smiley face and pretend it away, it’s still there.
While some of us seek reprieve in religious thought, others of us seek respite in spiritual philosophy or psychology, and still, others seek relief through addiction and mind-numbing external pursuits.
The truth is that although we are all born with Souls, not all of us know how to fully embody and integrate them into our human experience. The reality is that in our modern world, we live ego-centrically rather than Soul-centrically.
Mystics, saints, and shamans throughout history have all referred to this ego-centric human struggle in different ways. But the one thing they all had in common was their tendency to point to the need for us to consciously grow into our Divine potential.
One of these people was Saint John of the Cross, a Spanish monk who coined the term “Dark Night of the Soul” (“Noche Oscura” the name of one of his poems) based on his own mystical experience.
These days, the concept of the Dark Night of the Soul has come to be used in a much broader way. What was once a term reserved for people actively going through a Spiritual Journey, has now come to easily label anything ranging from a few bad days and a period of depression to the death of a loved one.
But what really is the Dark Night of the Soul?
(Note: if you feel the need for further gentle guidance after reading this article, I recommend checking out our Dark Night of the Soul Journal which is a wonderfully supportive way of finding a continued sense of direction and healing.)
Table of contents
- What is the Dark Night of the Soul?
- Dark Night and Depression – Is it the Same Thing?
- 7 Omens That Herald the Dark Night of the Soul
- Why Suffering is Necessary
- What is the Point of Living?
- Happiness Isn’t This or That, Happiness IS
- The Dark Night and The Spiritual Awakening Process
- Dark Night of the Soul Meditation
- Time to Go Into the Dark
First, we’ll start with a basic definition:
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What is the Dark Night of the Soul?
The Dark Night of the Soul is a period of utter spiritual desolation, disconnection, and emptiness in which one feels totally separated from the Divine.
Those who experience the Dark Night feel completely lost, hopeless, and consumed with melancholy.
The Dark Night of the Soul can be likened to severe spiritual depression (it’s a type of spiritual emergency.)
The concept of having a Dark Night of the Soul has existed for a long time, and spans back to the 16th century when poet and Catholic mystic Saint John of the Cross wrote a poem entitled, “La noche oscura del alma (The Dark Night of the Soul).”
Wrote Saint John:
If a man wishes to be sure of the road he’s traveling on, then he must close his eyes and travel in the dark.
Traditionally, the Dark Night of the Soul refers to the experience of losing touch with God/Creator and being plunged into the abyss of godless emptiness.
The modern understanding of having a Dark Night of the Soul, however, is not exclusively a religious one, but can often mean losing all meaning in life, feeling out-of-touch with the Divine, feeling betrayed or forsaken by Life, and having no solid or stable ground to stand on.
Some of the heaviest questions we ask during this period include for example, “Why am I alive?” “Why do good people suffer?” “What is truth?” “Is there a god or afterlife?” and “What is the point of living?”
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Dark Night and Depression – Is it the Same Thing?
The Dark Night of the Soul is not the same as depression.
Although depression shares many of its characteristics with the experience of having a Dark Night of the Soul, it can often be treated and sometimes cured with medications, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), mindfulness practices, lifestyle changes, and so forth.
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Furthermore, depression often has its roots in biological chemical imbalances and/or unhealthy thought patterns, and often comes as a result of personal loss, mental illness, physical illness, abuse, genetics, and so on.
However, while the Dark Night of the Soul isn’t the same as regular depression, it can be thought of as spiritual depression.
One of the biggest differences between the Dark Night of the Soul’s depression and regular depression is that the Dark Night is primarily a spiritual and existential form of crisis that can’t be treated or cured with therapy or psychiatry.
Therefore, those of us going through the Dark Night can often feel an increasing sense of hopelessness, unease, and despair as we discover that no one can save us but ourselves.
Inevitably, this makes us feel even more alone, frustrated, and confused about the world and about ourselves.
I am intensely aware of what it is like to experience complete psychological and spiritual desolation and although the feeling seems endless, there is a light at the end of the tunnel if you just know where to look.
7 Omens That Herald the Dark Night of the Soul
I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.
– Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
“What’s the difference between the dark night and depression?” you may still wonder.
Even back in the 16th century, Saint John of the Cross himself was at great pains to distinguish the Dark Night from mere melancholia (depression).
After all, the symptoms of the Dark Night of the Soul are not that different from depression.
But while depression is psychological/neurological/biological, the Dark Night heralds deep-seated changes occurring within us known as spiritual transformation.
Here are 7 “omens” that you might be going through a Dark Night of the Soul:
- You feel a deep sense of sadness, which often verges on despair (this sadness is often triggered by the state of your life, humanity, and/or the world as a whole)
- You feel an acute sense of unworthiness
- You have the constant feeling of being lost or “condemned” to a life of suffering or emptiness
- You possess a painful feeling of powerlessness and hopelessness
- Your will and self-control is weakened, making it difficult for you to act
- You lack interest and find no joy in things that once excited you
- You crave for the loss of something intangible; a longing for a distant place or to “return home” again
(You can also take our free Dark Night of the Soul test to help you discover whether you’re going through this experience or not.)
The ultimate difference between regular depression and the Dark Night of the Soul’s depression is that regular depression is usually self-centric, whereas the Dark Night’s depression is philosophical in nature and is accompanied by existential reflections such as “Why am I here?” and “What is my purpose?”
Also, when depression ends, not much changes in your life in terms of your beliefs, values, and habits.
However, when the Dark Night of the Soul ends, everything in your life is transformed, and life becomes wondrous again.
Why Suffering is Necessary
My desire to live is as intense as ever, and though my heart is broken, hearts are made to be broken: that is why God sends sorrow into the world … To me, suffering seems now a sacramental thing, that makes those whom it touches holy … any materialism in life coarsens the soul.
– Oscar Wilde “Letters“
Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dąbrowski once coined the term Positive disintegration, which views tension and anxiety as a necessary part of the process of spiritual and psychological maturing.
In other words, it is the friction within us that causes the mirror of our Souls to be polished enough for us to glimpse our True Nature.
I often hear people speak of the Dark Night as some kind of problem they have to “fix,” or something they “went through a long time ago, that is now over, thank God.”
But what these people thought was a Dark Night may have just been a glimpse of the darkness within them, especially when they speak egotistically about it as if it were a badge of honor.
A true Dark Night of the Soul leaves a long-lasting impact on you – it changes you completely.
When you exit a Dark Night, you will discover that something is always taken away from you (for the better), such as your beliefs, your perceptions, your former meaning in life, or even in rare cases, your ego identification.
The metaphysician Ananda Coomaraswamy put it this way:
No creature can attain a higher grade of nature without ceasing to exist.
Have you ever seen a butterfly begin to emerge from its cocoon? It must struggle in order to strengthen its wings.
If someone frees the butterfly from its cocoon prematurely, it won’t be able to fly because its crucial tempering stage will not have occurred.
The same is true for trees. Trees need wind in order to build their structural strength to stay upright.
Your Dark Night of the Soul is your wind, your cocoon; it is an ego death whereby you shed the ego that prevents you from embodying your Soul.
If you try to avoid the hard work of, as Ananda put it, “ceasing to exist,” or breaking down your old confining structures, you won’t have what it takes to truly embody your essential nature.
What is the Point of Living?
Here’s another central question and concern that emerges over and over again during our Dark Night of the Soul.
What is the point of living?
Such a question weighs down on us like lead, oppressing us constantly.
Each day, we might obsessively search for an answer, but find to our greatest dismay that the answers to such a question are as expansive as the waves on the ocean.
Some people tell us, “the point is to serve God,” others tell us, “the point is to make a difference,” and others tell us, “there is no point: you make your own meaning.”
These are only three of hundreds, even thousands of possible answers.
What the hell are we supposed to do?
Who is right, who is wrong … if there really is any “right” or “wrong” answer? We walk down one path and immediately become dissatisfied, disillusioned, and repelled by what we discover.
Then we walk down another path and history repeats itself again and again until we realize with horror, “Every path is meaningless to me,” and we collapse in grief and despair, winding up at square one again.
Such a cycle repeats itself over and over again during the Dark Night of the Soul, so much so that it can become like torment. I know because I have experienced it.
The strange thing is that although we get to a point of complete desolation, we still hold a glimmer of hope that pursuing the same path over and over and over again will somehow bring us to a deeply satisfying meaning one day.
We seem to think that the mind is the solution to our problems; that utilizing the mind will release us from the original prison created by the mind that feels the need to quantify, measure, and define everything.
What most of us fail to do, however, is to question the actual questions we are asking and pursuing the answers to. Have you ever tried asking:
Why must there be a point to living? Instead of, What is the point of living?
I’ll elaborate on this below.
Happiness Isn’t This or That, Happiness IS
Earlier today I opened my email and received a poignant message from one of our long-time readers asking:
I don’t understand. Why am I alive? Why do I experience life? I don’t know why I am here now. I don’t see the point of living my life. I don’t want anything, not material /physical achievements, not relationships, not entertainment, nothing. I don’t know what to do with this body, mind, and feelings. Or maybe I just experience this life too intensely until I am numbed. But why?
My answer to anyone experiencing this is that although you might feel cursed, you are actually blessed. It sounds absurd, even insulting, but this is the truth.
Before any true growth or healing can occur, there must be a process of destruction and complete annihilation of everything you thought would bring you happiness.
Most people experiencing Dark Nights realize this: that nothing makes them happy anymore; not bodily, not sexual, not emotional, not material, not political, not social, not even spiritual. And this is the start of the purification process.
Conditioning vs. reality …
Since birth you have been conditioned to believe that money will make you happy, a sexy/rich partner will make you happy, a high IQ will make you happy, a big house will make you happy, a thriving career will make you happy, a perfect life will make you happy.
But this is all a lie because whenever you pursue happiness, you are immediately losing touch with the fact that happiness is already here, right now, in this very second, without you having to do anything or question anything. Happiness IS.
$3This sounds like the most ridiculous thing you might have ever heard, and yet deep down you might sense the truth in it.
If this is the case the first layer of your illusion has been peeled away; what a blessing!
A blessing in disguise …
In reality, it is absolutely terrifying to have the ground beneath your feet ripped out from beneath you, and this is precisely what we experience during the Dark Night of the Soul.
And yet, this experience is the greatest teacher of all to us because it illuminates what is fragile, transient, and subject to change, growth, and decay.
We are subsequently left with a feeling of great inner emptiness, but within this emptiness, we eventually come to see what can never come, go, change or die, and that is the truth of who we are: pure, peaceful, and blissful conscious essence.
The mind is always frantically searching …
The mind is a product of our evolutionary development: it protects us and structures our existence, and through it, we can experience the beauty of life.
But in order to truly come to any closure during our Dark Nights we must understand that the mind is limited, narrow, and finite – and therefore so is our reasoning.
Why must there be a “point” to living other than the experience of being alive in all of its fascinating and shocking diversity? Why must we “pursue” or “find” something rather than simply experiencing each moment fully and completely in the simplicity of Being?
That is why I say that happiness isn’t this or that, happiness IS.
What exactly are we seeking when we want to answer the question, “What is the point of living”? We want a satisfactory answer that will appeal to the mind and “GIVE” us happiness.
But happiness can’t be given because happiness IS. This might all sound like fancy rhetoric, but I recommend that you let it sink in and really look into it more.
For me it took years, but these six questions helped to solidify the understanding that happiness and fulfillment are already here, now. Please read them to continue your journey.
The Dark Night and The Spiritual Awakening Process
As humans, the prospect of change is avoided and resisted because it is unknown territory. Therefore, we fear it. For this reason, we require a Spiritual Awakening.
There are three ways that Spiritual Awakenings can occur:
the first is at the hands of wise spiritual teachers, the second is through the spiritual drive of soulfully mature people, and the third is spontaneously due to life experience.
Spontaneous awakenings arrive in a number of ways: a terminal diagnosis, old age, a near-death experience, a physical accident, the loss of a loved one, a romantic breakup, the destruction of your home or homeland, suicidal depression, or the complete loss of your religious faith.
The Dark Night is a herald, an omen, of change. It lets us know that we can’t continue living the way we have been living. There is no growth, no awakening in life, to life, without first seeing and acknowledging our existing disappointment.
Acknowledging our disappointment means becoming aware of the deeply held sense of “incompletion” that we all carry; it means becoming aware that something is desperately missing from our lives.
Those that have experienced, or are currently experiencing a Dark Night of the Soul will know that something very fundamental at a core level is out of focus or completely lacking in their lives.
Those going through a Dark Night will sense that so much more is possible in their lives, even though they don’t exactly know what that “so much more” is.
Paradise lost and found …
One of the common reasons why Dark Nights occur and are prolonged is due to mystical experiences, or short glimpses of the divine, which spiritual teachers often refer to as “grace” or samādhi.
Soon afterward, the person “loses” this experience, and is plunged into unhappiness again. This is called the “halo effect,” “afterglow” or what the Sufis speak of as the “sobriety of union.”
Why does the “halo effect” happen? It happens because of the stark contrast between one’s rediscovered Divine Self and the return to one’s disconnected and tormented Ego self.
To the spiritually mature person, the halo effect sets the stage for a future encounter with the transcendental, with God.
However, for the less prepared seeker, the glimpse into the Divine stirs up even more distress as old habits, obsessions, thoughts, and behaviors reappear. Now, such a person realizes that he has a long, complex, and demanding task of purification and transformation ahead of him.
In Spiritual Alchemy, there is a word for this experience called solutio; putting all the hard stuff in the waters of reflection (your ideas, your habits, etc.), where it dissolves and breaks apart, shows itself for what it is, and gives you the opportunity for a fresh start.
Find freedom through purging …
The solution to one’s suffering and disconnection from the divine realm can be any method of cutting away, dislodging, disintegrating, and clearing old pieces of your life so that you can begin afresh.
Essentially, the Dark night is a process of shedding away your old home and going in search of a new one.
Understandably, this process requires a huge leap of faith into the unknown which can come at quite a sudden and frightening pace.
If you think you might be going through this journey, it’s important to understand that many of us have been where you are. Many people still are.
There is no map, there is only the flickering luminescence of your Soul to light the way.
I hope our work can encourage, embolden, and support you if you are undertaking this descent into your Underworld.
Dark Night of the Soul Meditation
While every experience of the Dark Night of the Soul is different, the one common thread is that it is a path of initiation.
You are in the dark so that you can understand what Light is. You are disconnected so that you can know what connection is. You are lost so that you can find your way back Home.
If these explanations of the Dark Night don’t resonate with you, please go ahead and discard them.
I’m not here to tell you what the Dark Night of the Soul should mean because, ultimately, you must figure that out for yourself.
You need to be the one to make meaning out of your experience. I can only offer my own understanding.
If you have read up until this point you are probably looking for additional help, and that is completely understandable.
However, the Dark Night of the Soul is a complex and profound experience and it cannot be solved by reading a “six-step” formula or bullet list.
What I can offer you, however, is a simple meditation which may provide you with some level of relief.
When you can dredge up enough energy (I know how exhausting and depleting the Dark Night can be), try experimenting with the following Dark Night of the Soul meditation:
Find a quiet and undisturbed place. If you like, play some celestial or ethereal music in the background to set the mood. Lie down and close your eyes. For a minute or two focus on your breath. Feel your chest rise and fall. Once you feel connected with your body, shift your focus to creating an image of yourself walking through a dark forest. Imagine that you are looking above to see the dark tangled branches of the forest obscure the sky. What does the forest feel like? Is it cold, hot, balmy, humid or icy? Can you smell, feel, or taste anything?
As you keep walking through the dark forest, the path in front of you seems endless. The atmosphere feels deathly and melancholic. Suddenly, a white wolf emerges from the trees. It looks at you with intelligent and kind eyes and begins to accompany you as you walk. Your feeling of loneliness lifts slightly as you enjoy the company of your animal friend. Suddenly, the wolf beside you stops and stares intensely into the dark trees ahead of you. You peer ahead but cannot see anything but dark shadows. Suddenly, your wolf companion lifts up his head and lets out a loud and haunting wolf call.
The hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Just after the wolf stops howling, a white light slowly emerges from deep within the forest. At first, the light is tiny and like a pinprick. But as you walk towards it, the light becomes bigger and brighter. A feeling of hope begins to fill you. Tentatively, you start jogging towards the light. You notice that the faster you run, the bigger the light gets. The closer you move to the light, the more open and expansive you feel. You pick up your pace. The feeling is exhilarating! Far behind you, the white wolf howls again. A feeling of wildness and freedom starts to warm you from the inside out. As you continue running, the light begins to consume your vision. The dark forest begins to quickly fade. As you look down, you notice that your legs are the legs of a wolf – without knowing it, you have experienced a total transformation – and it is liberating! Picking up your pace, you keep running and you let out a loud howl. The piercing sound of the howl dissolves all hopelessness, sadness, and darkness left within you. The howl has completely purified you. All that remains is pure light, love, hope, power, and peace. You feel spacious and open. You are free!
Enjoy the feeling of freedom for as long as you wish. When you are ready, wiggle your fingers and toes and return back to the room. You may like to journal about your experience.
Feel free to record this visualization, get someone to read it out to you gently, or change the meditation to your own liking. It has been created to ultimately benefit you.
Time to Go Into the Dark
To end this article, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Dark Night of the Soul quotes by David Whyte – a man who understood the value of making peace with the darkness:
… Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.The dark will be your womb
tonight.The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free inGive up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learnanything or anyone
that does not bring you aliveis too small for you.
– “Sweet Darkness” by David Whyte
Now, over to you:
What has your experience been like with the Dark Night of the Soul? Please share below to help others not feel so alone.
P.S. If you’re experiencing the Dark Night and desperately need more guidance, see our Dark Night of the Soul Journal for extra help. Our article on Soul Work might also be of assistance to you.
If you need more help, we offer 3 powerful ways to guide you on your inner journey:
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As I’m reading this I’m really high on drugs trying to understand why Is it that I enjoy this darkness night of the soul. I feel like nothing really matters in the spectrum of the universe we’re all going to die anyway so why do we need to put ourselves through this suffering? We’re eternal and will live beyond this skin so why am not afraid of this dark soul? Is it possible that whole I was seeking light my whole life it was darkness that I needed… can humans thrive in darkness? And why do we need to see dark night if the soul as something transitional. I feel amazing I feel free, I could use a bit more freedom but then I would scare people hehe lately satanism has been calling on me I’m not sure if this is part of the growth but I do believe free will is so important when we talk about our lives. We don’t have alot of time left in this world yet for some reason sometimes it feels like its also very long. I do have depression but I’m coping really great with the help of martial arts and therapy. I… Read more »
This is an absolutely brilliant article thank you. A few years ago I had a flash of Divine Grace, I saw my true nature. I lived a year or so in happiness, totally transforming my life, building a spiritual career, retraining in what felt like things more true to who I am. I read tonnes of books. Now, I dip into dark moments. So lost, confused- nothing has any meaning. I don’t strive to do or be anything but in that I am directionless and empty. What is one supposed to do and be? If it is all meaningless? In truth, it doesn’t matter one bit. Do as you will and love God. But that’s a hard thing to swallow for most of us who have this idea that we must choose a path of some sort and spend our daily hours working towards something or engaging in things we like. To be utterly directionless and without likes, interests, views, preferences is unfathomable to most of us. But if we can embrace it, just move through our day in each moment just living simply, just getting on with whatever job we’re in, without craving for anything else then we’re on… Read more »
I believe I am going through a Dark Night of the Soul. Though I have never been in the place I am right now and actually find out it is a real thing. I am kind of surprised to find I am alone but not really. Because I know when I feel alone God is still right here with me all the time. It’s the reason why I like to spend time alone. Sometimes I can’t get enough. Because I know that it’s not really a bad place to be. Yet I don’t know where I’m at. I don’t understand everything. It’s like a passing moment that if I don’t write it down or tell someone about it the ” message ” becomes lost after coming out of it. I have found though that if it is something that is lost after going through. Another time will come again. Because it is just like walking in the dark I still don’t see everything I still don’t understand all that I see or even hear. But as time goes by more understanding reveals itself. I welcome this. I see that change is important and nessasary. But I can’t seem to get… Read more »
I feel like e everything and everyone is superficial. My disgust in humanity is so deep. I have no one who seems to be smart enough to understand the connotations of the implicitly simplistic views I am trying to share. Words are so inadequate. Nothing is real. I feel like a void. No living being seems to really see ME. I no longer even bother with the theoretical of why! All I can think of now is perhaps just sticking it out for the duration until my name is called. Not the name by which I am known in this world. The name by which my inner self will instinctively know to be true. Perhaps only then, will I be allowed to go to the place where I will be deemed FAMILY.
Sunday Feb 14th By Raw Realities Pty Ltd. he he Owning Up to the Dark Day of My Soul – unbridled truth. It’s Sunday today, and like all good Queenslanders I was tucked in bed last night by 9:30 (curfew), yet could not rest. So I decided to really let out my feelings to my dear heart, on my current worries and feelings. A moment of speaking absolute truth! What began as simple self talk about our old age, health issues etc., grew out of all proportion into a verbal tirade,…On if I was running for the hills, leaving the nest, and being totally irresponsible. Leaving the family nest without male guardianship. While leaving all hope of sensible approaches ! So having handled these situations before, I took some quick military quick steps, to stem the flow, (Sooth the savage beast), and reset the course of conversation onto the old acceptable plateau. To my relief it worked, as we both calmed down, had a cuppa and re established love lines of sensible approaches, for now. And how I had just been airing my negative dark inner thoughts and grievances, but would not fully contemplate acting upon them without full unbridled… Read more »
I definitely experienced all the above to where I realized I had hit rock bottom. I prayed for clarity, mental healing, joy, love and anything positive possible. I suffer from severe depression and anxiety in which emotions of hopelessness, self-loathe, and seizing to exist consumed me as a whole. It wasn’t until I dove into the unknown (scary as hell) and surrendered to the universe. I got clean. I allowed others to help me mentally and physically. I turned to my faith. I meditated. I read self-growth books. I chose vulnerability over ego. To this day, about nine months later, I still am learning more about myself. I guess you can call it “soul searching” and for once in a very long time, I honestly found my inner peace. I love who I am transitioning to and journal about my day with gratitude. For that, I have been able to embrace joy in the negatives and positives. An author, Jen Sincero wrote this quote in her latest book: “Control is fear. Surrender is faith.” Those words couldn’t have arrived at any time better than here in the present. This insightful page has made much more sense for me as well.… Read more »
I needed this article today. I woke up feeling nauseated because of what I was experiencing – and although it’s been going on for a few months now – and maybe even longer – probably up to a year – these past few weeks have been especially hard. I feel really disconnected, most of the sources where I find joy aren’t working in the same way, and I’m finding myself isolating and wanting to be alone to really hear what my soul is trying to say. I’m in a beautiful relationship, but he (on the surface and in his conscious mind) isn’t as concerned with matters of the soul – and so a lot of what I’m struggling with, he doesn’t necessarily resonate with the language for. It’s interesting, because I think he, too, is going through his own dark night. In any event, I’ve been feeling a little lost, a little hopeless, and so today (because it felt so bad to just wake up), I went looking for answers and looked up all of the websites that I usually go to, and nothing really stood out to me, and then it crossed my mind – I miss Luna and… Read more »
I was simply sitting at my desk preparing an exam, I got distracted a moment despite my will and looked outside the window. Immediately my mind was captured by a though I couldn’t have hidden any more: death is inevitable, for everything, and I will be nothing again. This though made me wonder in my house without destination, it made me looking for my friends, following other people at work, just anything to feel distracted, but nothing could distract me cause nothing I saw in this world was safe. I felt that this is a terribile truth that I understood, cursing me and the others, those who look at me in this state. The infinite despair sucked me in a parallel dimensions why my body was still on earth, but unable to do or whish anything expect doing automated action like eating without having hunger or smiling to people without feeling anything. I even doubted I am existing. Or something ever existed. I felt this is the ultimate conclusion of my mind, a conclusion which can only make it destroy itself, a thing which I’ve felt inevitable since a long time. Before sleeping I was shaking, legs and arms, so… Read more »
I really felt I had to share something of myself after reading this one! There have been times where I have felt dispair about humanity and the world, and have always pushed it to the side to deal with ‘later’. In the past two years I have been broken down physically, emotionally, and mentally, through the birth of my daugher, followed by illness, and now current events have meant being, again, unable to work so I found I have run out of excuses not to tackle the question of my spiritual self! In October this year I experienced an acute sense of unworthiness, and lack of interest in everything. And rage, a week of terrible rage, disillusionment, huge loss, a touch of hopelessness, and plenty of fear. I felt duty bound to see my doctor who prescribed me antidepressants. I kept the unopened pack of them on the side as a safety net, and gave myself another three days. Then there was a week of feeling like an empty cup. No ambition, no anger, a little stab of fear (was I ok or loosing my mind)! But I was no longer striving for control. A very different path for me.… Read more »
I’m glad I found this article. It soothed me. I read many of the comments. My disconnection the past year or so has been a feeling of my guardian spirits not around me. I went through a lot of loneliness, sadness, melancholy, powerlessness, isolation, anger and fear of never being able to live forever. I’m still struggling but now I’m ok with isolation. I’m ok sitting with myself now and enjoy my own company. All of a sudden I realize I enjoy just listening to the wind blowing through the trees and listening to the birds. I’ve begun a small garden. My taste in music has changed. I feel like I’ve connected with the universe. I’m just calmer now. Some days are worse than others. I’m still growing but I feel the change in me. I dont need the toxic people I’ve had in my life. I just don’t feel as desperate or in despair. 2 years I’ve been struggling with whatever this is but now I’m seeing a light….