The Dark Night of the Soul
If you can picture an image of yourself breaking out of a shell or a cast — shedding the chains that have bound you — this is what is happening to you.
I wrote about the Dark Night of the Soul at the end of the summer last year and thought maybe now is the time to expand a little more. I was sat in Greece, just waiting to head back home from a wonderful two weeks, and had just read an article on it which triggered a lot of emotion from my experiences of having them.
So, what is the Dark Night of the Soul?
It is the deepest, darkest emotion — the place from where you can see no way out. The pain in your heart hurts so deeply, and the cries are more like those of an animal.
Eckhart Tolle describes it as “a collapse of a perceived meaning in life… an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness. The inner state, in some cases, is very close to what is conventionally called depression.”
This process can occur at any point in your life, and some may never experience it. The Dark Night of the Soul is a transitional period — a clearing out of the old to make way for the new. It can be triggered by a major event happening in your life that takes you so deep that you reach a point of questioning. I have seen it described as a beautiful experience — and to an extent, I can see afterwards why it would be; at the time, however, it can be painful.
The beauty described is the reduction of the ego and the evolution of self-love. It’s now your time to move on — leave behind the old you and step forward.
If you can picture an image of yourself breaking out of a shell or a cast — shedding the chains that have bound you — this is what is happening to you.
So, the next time you experience this emotion (and there are varying degrees of it), see yourself as a butterfly emerging — and get ready to embrace the new world.
Add comment
Comments