In myths and legends throughout history, the “dark night of the soul” is depicted as the point when the hero of the story falls into a deep depression, and all hope seems lost.
Everything she had fought for seems to have been for nothing, and a disastrous defeat has rendered her plans, aspirations, and dreams meaningless.
We are not mythical characters in a story, but chances are you’re familiar with the dark night where it feels like nothing matters anymore and the life that you longed for in the deepest spaces of your heart, is now forever out of reach.
This feeling of defeat can be overwhelmingly powerful, and the heartbreak too painful to bear. When we hit rock-bottom, carrying on seems unthinkable.
In myths and legends, the dark night of the soul extinguishes the spark inside the hero, and her source of hope, optimism and meaning appear to be gone forever. And it almost is. From the outside, there’s nowhere to go from that point.
And yet… somehow, a transformation happens.
In the darkness that descends, the hero discovers what she’s been missing all along. She finds within her spirit a deep and powerful flame of meaning and purpose that burns bright.
This is where she transcends all that has come before to rise up to the next level of her journey.
When we are passionate about living a transformed life, where we intentionally and patiently connect with spirit so we can live in alignment with our core purpose, we become unstoppable.
The past few years have been hard on all of us and so much harder for some than others. In light of all that we have seen and continue to witness and experience in the world, our pain continues to flow.
And while it can feel unbearable, spiritual masters throughout time have shared wise guidance about this seemingly endless pain…
Pain is a part of being human. Pain is the great equalizer. Pain has the power to alchemize our sorrow into our soul purpose.
The pain that is the dark night of the soul is also the catalyst that can help us find the courage and the fire to create change.
When all hope is lost, we come face to face with the limitations of our own efforts, our own opinions, our own beliefs.
The dark night shows us the stark reality of these limitations, and how we cannot complete our journey alone.
We need to reach out for help, from the Universe, from others.
We need to break past limiting beliefs and let abundance flow.
We need to embrace what life and spirit is, not what we want it to be.
We need to stop hoping and striving and start believing and allowing.
The pain of the dark night of the soul only comes as a result of resistance. When we fight the process of transcending, we feel the pain of struggle.
But when we release our grip, and seek the lessons that the Universe is trying to help us learn, we transcend.
We become liberated from those limitations, one by one, and we experience abundance and a deeper connection with the divine – a rush of love and abundance and freedom that is greater than we’ve ever known.
So when you find yourself in these dark nights, instead of resisting, settle in. There is so much pleasure and hope to be had when you realize you are not at the end of your journey, but the beginning of the next stage. You are breaking out of a cocoon…
You are getting ready to fly.