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Are you experiencing a situation where everything that could go wrong in your life is going wrong?

Do you feel like you’re on an inescapable island with no one to help you and you’re just freefalling into an abyss of confusion devoid of any sense of purpose?

If so, don’t worry.

A lot of people have experienced this same situation.

You’re currently going through what is called: the dark night of the soul, also termed: the ego death.

This concept was first coined by Saint John of the Cross, a 16th-century Spanish mystic and poet in his poem: Noche Oscura

It’s the most sacred rite of passage that one can ever go through during a spiritual awakening.

In this blog, I explain what a dark night of the soul is, its stages, its benefits, and how you can go through it.

So, let’s jump in.

What is the dark night of the soul?

When you’re going through a dark night of the soul, it will feel like you’re facing an existential crisis; where you don’t know your life purpose anymore -and life loses all its meaning to you.

In this season, you won’t understand what’s happening to you or have any answers.

The worldview you once had starts crumbling and you’re tossed into a state of disarray and chaos.

This period introduces a massive crisis for your psyche; because the things that were pivotal to your internal and external reality are suddenly brought into question.

And the foundation that your ego uses to create its belief system and identity is challenged and becomes unhinged.

This might seem like a dreary picture but, don’t worry.

The dark night of the soul is a very transformative period where you’re being awakened into a higher level of consciousness and where all states of your ego that do not serve you are dismantled.

This period can be compared to when a butterfly emerges from its cocoon.

Now that you understand the dark night of the soul, let’s get into its stages.

Stages of the dark night of the soul

The event

The dark night of the soul is activated when a negative event suddenly occurs in your life and invalidates the meaning you had in your life.

For example, the death of a loved one, a break up or divorce, loss of a career, loss of reputation, or a serious illness.

This is when something that you identify yourself with is taken away from you and you feel like a rag has been pulled out from under you.

It’s like the ground beneath you crumbles and you no longer know who you are.

The breakdown

This is when the template of your worldview is thoroughly challenged to the point where your foundation is being shaken to its core.

And what you’ve been attaching your sense of identity and safety to is gone and you start to Loss hope and direction.

You experience a mental nervous breakdown and you’re thrust into a state of shock, despair, and hopelessness.

It’s at this point that the ego death begins.

The purge

This is when your new reality sets in and a deep emotional purge begins.

All your unprocessed emotions even those dating back to infancy can arise at this stage.

You’ll feel like you don’t have any control over your emotions and a wave of despair, rage, grief, and confusion will wash over you -sometimes all at once.

This is when you hit rock bottom.

The void

At this stage, a feeling of emptiness and loss of meaning will start to creep in and loom over you.

Anhedonia kicks in and the things that once made you content, you no longer find enjoyable.

You’ll also feel emotionally naked because you’ll start to face your own hypocrisy and outdated beliefs.

This is an inherently tough and uncomfortable stage that leaves you feeling scared and completely exposed because you don’t know what lies underneath after the ego withers away.

This can be a deeply isolating period.

Reintegration

At this stage, your shadow self has been assimilated and you start to let go of the things that are not in alignment with your higher self.

You start to piece yourself back together and become more aligned with your life’s true purpose.

If you’ve never experienced a dark night of the soul, you might be scared and crossing both fingers and toes so that you never experience this situation.

But, here are some benefits that arise from having gone through a dark night of the soul:

Benefits of going through the dark night of the soul

A deeper connection to the divine

Your soul is energy that contains spiritual programming about who you’re destined to become.

A dark night of the soul presents an opportunity for you to return home; to whom you were meant to be before the world told you who you should be.

It helps you loosen your identification with your ego and you go inward and downward -to a place you haven’t been before.

It often feels like a journey into the darkness.

But one you must take to return to your true self; the self you were born with and lost touch with for many different reasons.

And you finally recognize your divinity and connect to your spiritual nature.

You learn the art of surrender and being in a state of flow

Michael A. Singer in his book: The untethered soul, talks about the concept of false solidity.

This is when you hold on to the thoughts that you’ve pulled around yourself in an attempt to define who you are.

You do this because you are lost and you attempt to create a sense of stability and steadiness inside.

This generates a false but welcomed sense of security where you try your best to keep your job, relationship, and everything that your mind has identified with.

But all these things do not define who you are -and trying to keep it all together is like trying to control the wind.

When you go through a dark night of the soul, your ego identification with all these outside things withers away -and you let go of the struggle of trying to hold everything together.

This, my friend, is true freedom; when you learn the art of surrendering and staying in a state of flow.

Clarity

When a dark night of the soul occurs, it breaks down a misaligned career, relationship, and belief making you question everything.

This is because the soul requires us to live a life of truth, which is usually uncomfortable; but, what comes out of that is deeper clarity about who you truly are.

You’re reborn and thus can choose a life that reflects your truest self as opposed to the conditioning of your family, surrounding, and society.

You align with your more profound truths and your life takes on a deeper meaning; it begins to feel more authentic and expansive.

Assimilation of your shadow self

Your shadow which is made up of all the parts of yourself that you despise, loath, and hate and thus repressed in your psyche is more prevalent and easier to witness during a dark night of the soul.

The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung said: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you’ll call it fate.”

So, to prevent your shadow self from taking the wheel and controlling your life, you must assimilate and integrate it into your personality.

This phase is a gateway to analyzing your unhealthy unconscious beliefs and unprocessed traumas and presents an opportune moment for you to integrate your “Shadow Self.”

Assimilating your shadow into your persona is one of the most authentic spiritual practices that you can do to create a more complete picture of yourself.

You learn to become more present in the now

When I was going through my first dark night of the soul, I felt like I was losing my mind; I felt like I couldn’t control the incessant noise in my head about everything that was happening.

This led me to a book that forever changed my life: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

In this book, Eckhart Tolle talks about how identifying with the mind is the cause of suffering, and that the only way to stop the suffering is to stop being identified with it.

To be identified with your mind is to constantly dwell in the past and future -and the ego loves this.

It always has to go back to the past to get a sense of identification and constantly projects itself into the future to get some form of salvation.

The book teaches that real life is always happening in the now; in the present moment.

Since your mind is running a hundred miles per hour during a dark night of the soul, it’s an opportune moment for you to learn how to center yourself in the now.

And by doing so, you won’t be attached to your ego’s fragility.

You become more resilient

After going through such a challenging period in your life, you gain unshakable confidence in the knowledge that you can go through anything!

Whereas before you sought answers outside yourself, you now know that the power dwells within you.

A mindset shift happens where you know that no matter what happens, you’ll always make it through to the other side.

You’ll appreciate the changing seasons of life and the futility of fighting and resisting your present moment which is life itself.

You’ll learn to be open to the rhythmic flow of life, and let life be life.

Even though the benefits of a dark night of the soul are profound, going through it is still a very painful and challenging thing to do.

So, here’s how you can go through it without losing yourself.

How to get through the dark night of the soul

If you like to be in control and fight the direction that the universe is opening up for you, you might end up experiencing the same situation over and over again.

So, your best bet is to stop resisting what is happening and be open to the lesson the universe is trying to teach you.

During this time, a purification process is happening; where you’re shedding off the old conditioned self that no longer serves you, and you’re coming into alignment with your soul’s true purpose.

So, accept to be thrown into the proverbial fire that is reducing you to your purest form and stripping away all of your self-concepts that no longer serve you.

The more present you are to the experience, the more you’ll surrender, and the quicker you can go through it. 

Surrender means you don’t judge what is happening to you, you just accept it as your experience at that moment.

And no matter how hard your ego tries to keep you from surrendering because of the fear of its death, try to remember that nothing real is dying, only an illusory identity.

Here’s a quote from Carl Jung that can provide some solace: “There’s no coming to consciousness without pain.”

With all that being said, here are two important things that you need to know about the dark night of the Soul:

1) The ego never completely dies.

What happens is that the old ego that was so identified with things outside of your true identity dies -and a new ego is born; one that is more flexible, more loving, more spiritual, and more open.

2) You don’t go through only one dark night of the soul.

You go through multiple dark nights of the soul during your life.

This is because, as part of your spiritual evolution, old structures that no longer serve your soul’s purpose have to continue dissolving and disintegrating.

But here’s the most important thing to note: your subsequent dark nights of the soul are less painful than your first one.

This is due to the simple fact that you’re now wiser, stronger, and more in flow.

So, surrendering which is an essential part of going through a dark night of the soul quickly, is like second nature to you.

Conclusion

The dark night of the Soul at face value might appear as a negative thing -but, it isn’t.

It’s built into the fabric of walking the spiritual path.

And since it can be a challenging time, I want you to always remember this: your character is the best possible defense against the suffering that’s intrinsic to being.

So, build a strong character that allows you to easily let go, surrender to life, and always be in a state of flow.

I’ll leave you with this quote: “The endurance of darkness is the preparation for great light.”-St. John of the Cross.