This is a messy subject, and I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It’s too important to make it less than what it is. It’s wonderful when life has new beginnings. I live for those moments. To have beginnings, we also have to endure endings. Unfortunately, there are seasons of time when we go through what has been labeled by the mystics as, “The Dark Night of the Soul.” It sounds so very gruesome, and believe me, it is.
The Dark Night is not just a few weeks of hard times or a situation that comes along that is harder to navigate. The Dark Night lasts for a while and it is filled with losses, a sense of lack of direction, and an emptiness that is very hard to describe. Suddenly life feels like it has no purpose. The losses and sense of emptiness become a numbing reality of daily living.
It all goes beyond depression or you might describe it as the deepest depression ever experienced. It feels like the hottest summer, the fall, and winter all wrapped up in one. Authors have written about it and we all experience it at some time or point in our lives.
It’s strange to be in this place in life. Personally, I feel like if I pinch myself I would not feel a thing. The Dark Night is a numbing that speaks beyond hardship or loss. It’s saying goodbye to all that is familiar and I could only hope to wake up one day and find there is life inside of me again. It’s an odd place. I’ve cried every tear I could cry so all that is left is a settled feeling of “nothing.”
At this point, everything is potential. When I wake in the morning, I check my breathing, meditate, and wonder if there will ever be life inside of me again. The only hope is the vision that one day life will open up again instead of being swallowed by shadows and indecision. It’s agonizing yet freeing. I don’t have to worry about anything anymore.
So this is what I am doing….
Anything I care about is on “auto-pilot”. Yep, I just cruise. Every single day is met with just one more day I live, breathe, and exist.
I take care of what is in front of me. I don’t extend my thoughts any further than what I have right here and now. I keep my focus on now. After all, it’s all I have at the moment.
I grieve my losses (and there are significant ones). Healing only comes from release, so that is what I do.
I’m beginning to clear the clutter in life, even if it is just a thought in my mind. Clearing things out moves life forward even if it is just a small move.
I keep my hope intact, that life will soon open a brand new door, my heart will beat again, and that sense of purpose will arise in me once more. Purpose; yes, I remember that. Once I had some of that and it was good.
I put my hand on my heart and feel it is still beating. Yep, I’m good. It’s still there and I know I am still alive. It feels lost, but it’s still working it all out with me. I read I listen to good music or whatever makes me “feel”. I self-soothe and that is the best I know I can do.
I dream of what life used to be and what it can be again. The potential is what I live for. Every day has potential wrapped around it like a blanket. This Dark Night can’t last forever, even if it feels like it. Eventually, losses will change to new gains and new growth. An opportunity will come and movement will happen again. Until then, I do what I am doing. I’m just cruising, and one day I WILL set sail again. I just don’t know exactly when. A new dawn will come. Maybe not today, but I know it’s on its way. It has to be. Life can’t stay this way forever.
After all, some of my best inspiration comes from endings, grieving, losses, and ultimate change. Then there is God. Sometimes God is all I feel I have. So be it. God is with me. God forgive me for “whatever” it all might be.
If you are in this place, let it all happen through to the end of the season. Spring will come again. It always does. It will again. Ultimately life will be transformed and the sense of God will be even more profound than it ever has. My late daughter Christina loved this passage of Scripture:
Proverbs 3:5-6
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall [a]direct your paths.”
Loving you from here,
Jenine Marie
Good References:
Eckhart Tolle on the Dark Night of the Soul
Wikipedia, Dark Night of the Soul linked below:
Life Lessons by Jenine Marie 