The Dark Night of the Soul: A Guide

So you’re having a spiritual crisis. Not just your average “I forgot my password again” despair. No. This is deluxe, artisanal, aged-in-oak existential dread.

Signs You’re in a Funny Dark Night of the Soul:

• You’ve googled “am I having a spiritual awakening or just severely dehydrated?” twice this week.

• Your inner monologue now sounds like a philosophy major who’s had three coffees and zero hugs.

• You cry at kids shows. But not just any kids shows — the one that has your child in hysterics. Why is the animated pup more emotionally stable than you??

• You’ve made eye contact with a pigeon and genuinely felt it understood your pain.

Activities During Your Existential Breakdown:

• Stare at the ceiling like it’s going to answer back. Bonus points if you dramatically whisper “why?” with a single tear.

• Journal, but only in metaphors. (“Today I am a soggy crouton in the lukewarm soup of life.”)

• Argue with the Universe like it’s a customer service rep. “Hi yes, I’d like to return this ‘character-building experience.’ It’s defective and honestly kind of rude.”

• Try yoga, only to cry during savasana because the instructor said “release what no longer serves you” and apparently that includes your entire identity.

Common Thoughts:

• “Am I becoming enlightened or just finally realising I don’t like my job, my friends, or music?”

• “Is this shadow work or did I just remember every mistake I’ve made since 2007?”

• “What if I am the problem… but like, in a sexy, mysterious way?”

How to Survive:

• Hydrate. You can’t face the void on an empty tank.

• Laugh at the absurdity. The Universe made axolotls and you.. clearly it has a sense of humour.

• Be kind to yourself. You’re not broken. You’re just… buffering.

• Remember: Caterpillars literally dissolve into goo before becoming butterflies. You, too, might be emotional goo right now. But goo with potential.

So hang in there, fellow soul-navigator. One day you’ll look back at this confusing, messy, tear-streaked, melted-ice cream-filled moment and say:

“Wow, that was awful! But I survived (hopefully with a little laughter), though.”

Okay.. okay..

not to make light of something so serious, I just find comedy helps process the pain.

Let’s try again: The Dark Night of the Soul (Serious Version)

The Dark Night of the Soul is not a bad day, a rough week, or even depression in the clinical sense; though it may overlap with these experiences. It’s a profound spiritual and existential crisis, a deep unraveling of the self, often brought on by intense suffering, loss, or a sense that life has lost all its former meaning.

Coined by the 16th-century mystic St. John of the Cross, the term describes a passage through spiritual desolation, where one’s connection to God, spirit, or deeper purpose seems utterly severed. But in a broader, more modern sense, it refers to a phase in which everything you thought you knew about yourself, your beliefs, and your place in the world begins to collapse.

What It Feels Like

• Emptiness: An aching void where your sense of self or God used to be.

• Isolation: Feeling completely alone, even in the presence of others.

• Loss of meaning: The things that once brought joy, purpose, or identity now feel hollow or irrelevant.

• Despair without direction: You may not know what’s wrong but you know something is wrong, deeply and unbearably so.

• Silence: A spiritual or existential silence, where nothing responds to your longing for answers.

What’s Actually Happening

The Dark Night is not punishment. It is purification.

You’re being stripped of illusions, false identities, attachments, ego structures, and even spiritual pride. It is a dismantling of the constructed self in order to uncover something more real, more grounded, more free.

But this process is not romantic. It is disorienting and, at times, agonizing.

It is the death of who you thought you were.

Why It’s Important

This experience often comes at a threshold; a crossing point between one way of being and another. It may emerge:

• After a deep loss (a death, a relationship, a dream),

• During spiritual awakening or transformation,

• In the midst of burnout or existential reflection,

• Or without any identifiable cause, simply as part of your inner evolution.

The pain arises because the soul is growing, but the self is resisting.

How to Walk Through It

1. Surrender, don’t struggle. The more you fight the collapse, the longer it persists. This is not about “fixing” yourself, but letting go of what no longer serves your becoming.

2. Seek solitude, but not isolation. Quiet can be healing. But so can companionship with those who understand the journey.

3. Turn inward, gently. Practices like journaling, prayer, meditation, or simply sitting with your feelings can help you navigate this terrain. But don’t force clarity, this isn’t a time for answers, but for presence.

4. Be patient. The Dark Night has its own rhythm. It cannot be rushed. Trying to “get out of it” too soon may only delay the transformation it’s offering you.

5. Trust that something deeper is unfolding. Even when it feels like nothing is happening, the soul is doing its quiet, sacred work.

What Comes After

Though it may last weeks, months, or even years, the Dark Night is not endless.

What emerges on the other side is not your old self restored, but a self that has been reborn, more authentic, more grounded in truth, more connected to what matters most.

Many who go through it describe the eventual outcome as:

• A deeper sense of peace

• A renewed connection to something greater than themselves

• A clearer sense of purpose

• A softer heart, and a wiser soul

If you’re in the Dark Night now: You’re not lost. You’re in the in-between, the sacred threshold between who you were and who you’re becoming.

Let it strip you. Let it hollow you out. And when it’s done, you’ll find that what remains was what was real all along.

🖤