The Dark Night of the Soul is Part of the Spiritual Journey and Path

@ 2010  Bill Austin.  All Rights Reserved.

My name is Bill Austin and I am a spiritual healer, teacher, artist, author and visionary living in St Petersburg, FL in the United States. I have been on the spiritual path for around 20 years. One of the most challenging aspects of being on the spiritual path and journey really is the Dark Night of the Soul. This was utterly terrifying to me when it first happened and I hope by sharing my experiences with the Dark Night of the Soul that it will make it easier for you to go through this part of your spiritual journey.

The great Roman Catholic mystic Saint John of the Cross was the first person to write about the dark night of the soul in the 16th century but when I read his book many years later I found it deeply relevant to my life as well. I feel that almost everyone who consciously trods a spiritual path periodically goes through a Dark Night of the Soul experience where it almost feels like everything comes to a halt and all of your inner demons blossom overnight into full grown adversaries!

The first time I experienced this I was 29. I had graduated from law school without a job six months prior, I was living in a tiny efficiency apartment in Philadelphia and was experiencing back problems and insomnia. One day I woke up and my whole life felt bleak and dark and black. It was the first and only time I have ever experienced depression in my life and I did not know what to do. I totally freaked out and I was so upset and concerned that I even went to a psychologist for two visits and that did not help me at all.

This state of depression lasted for around six weeks and I emerged from this first dark night of the soul experience with a heartfelt understanding of what depression is and a permanent sense of compassion for people who experience which I did not have before this. I used to think that people who complained about depression just needed to get a life which I feel is how most people who have never experienced depression feel. It is very hard to understand or explain depression to someone who has never been there.

I later realized after reading the first Kryon book channeled by Lee Carrol that this first Dark Night of the Soul experience for me was triggered by the change in my guides. I was moving from that place of being totally oblivious to the spiritual path to being totally obsessed with the spiritual path and this experience was helping to prepare me for the mystical heart expansion one that happened three months later.

Over the years, I have experienced many variations of the Dark Night of the Soul. Thankfully it only took the form of extreme depression once. Often for me it emerges as a deep sense of sadness and sorrow; sometimes it is a sense of deep loneliness and disconnection from others and sometimes it appears as suppressed anger/rage and irritation about living on such a dysfunctional planet - almost like being abandoned. Sometimes it impacts all areas of my life and other times I only feel this impact one or two areas. The first few times this happened to me I totally freaked out and panicked and descended into a space of fear which would
prolong the experience for much longer than it normally would take: So I do not recommend this tactic.

I used to obsess about it and get very agitated and worried that this would be how I experience the rest of my life. Now I realize that like most things - "This too shall pass" and I realize that the areas of my life that are impacted by the Dark Night of the Soul are areas of my life that are not in sync with the highest level aspect of my monad - which means that they no longer serve my highest good or my spiritual evolution. I also have found that often I can avoid an intense Dark Night of the Soul experience if I heed the wake up calls I receive before they become huge. In a way the Dark Night of the Soul is a huge, extreme wake up call.

Now when the Dark Night of the Soul approaches, I view it as Spring Cleaning and Clearing - not a fun period in my life - but not an utter disaster either. I realize now that the Dark Night of the Soul is a great teacher for me in the area of living authentically because it often takes away or totally transforms the things and people in life I am attached to that no longer serve my highest good and my personal and spiritual evolution. It also brings up, triggers and activates a lot of shadow energy and negative ego programming for me to look at, clear, transmute and heal. I do strongly advise people to not make any important decisions until
after you emerge from this space.

So each time now I go through a Dark Night of the Soul I find that even though the process is painful and often people and things that used to be important part of my life fall away, ultimately it is a good thing and usually it propels me to the next level. Also I have found that as I grow and evolve I find that there are many fewer things, people, events and circumstances in my life that I am attached to so the whole process is much less painful.

Everyone on the Planet Feels to Me like They are Experiencing a Dark Night of the Soul

I am talking about this now because I think that Dark Night of the Soul used to be a thing experienced by spiritually oriented souls and now it has expanded planetary wise to encompass everyone. As Earth evolves, expands and ascends, in effect it places all of
humanity on a spiritual mastery path and part of that path is the Dark Night of the Soul. Most of humanity has been sleeping quite comfortably and coasting and not doing the inner work that is needed if they will be able to keep up energetically in the planet. So in the years ahead most of them will experience a HUGE Dark Night of the Soul in almost every area of their life for the first time without understanding what happened to them.

People who are reading this - well you are in the forefront of spiritual evolution on the planet and I encourage each of you to be as compassionate as you can to the people around you. Many of you will act as energetic mentors to your friends and family as they go through this experience - even if you never say a word to them. It probably will be quite challenging for humanity especially since they are so addicted and conditioned to the emotional roller coaster.

In a way, everything on the planet now that does not or cannot hold love and is not sourced in love and anchored in the heart paradigm of Gaia is going through the Dark Night of the Soul. Economics, politics, government organizations, financial ones, etc. are not aligned with love and people are very attached to them and energetically controlled to some extent by things like money so we may be in for a very interesting time.

While most of the planetary attention now is on money (written in January 2009), I also feel that a huge area of cleansing and purification for most of humanity will be in the field of
relationships. A lot of relationships do not honor and support energetically either one or both parties and this will have to change. And relationships that have undertones of abuse, people
pleasing, giving or taking power away from others are very vulnerable to the winds of a Dark Night of the Soul. And of course the potential exists for many folks who do not resonate with the spiritual evolution of the planet to transition off the planet.

In these times, I challenge each of you to examine your life and look at all the people, events, relationships and circumstances in your life and ask - Am I living authentically in these areas? Do they bring me joy and serve my highest good? And if the answer is NO, then please change these things as soon as possible on your own before they create a huge crisis in your life.
 

Ways to Cope with the Dark Night of the Soul


Meditate on the areas in your life that you have been getting wakeup calls in but ignoring.

Try to live more authentically from your heart and soul.

Try to avoid obsessing on the negative aspects of the Dark Night and try not to move into the vibration of fear which tends to shut us down emotionally and prolong the experience.

Love yourself and be as kind, gentle and nurturing to yourself while you can.

While you are in this place you may want to withdraw a bit from the world. I find when I am in this space that I am more sensitive and emotionally raw than usual and hanging out with others often bothers me.

Hang out and connect with nature. Take walks, go to the beach, camp, that type of thing. Gaia is a great healer and a great balancer.

Sometimes I journal to transfer the stuff from inside of me to outside of me. I rarely look at what I write later but I find this soothes me.

Be as kind as you can to the important people in your life. While speaking your truth is important, often this is not the time to have serious conversations with people.

Try not to make too many important decisions while you are in this space.

Know that this too shall pass.

Much self love, joy, mastery, abundance and healing to each of you as you traverse through the Dark Night of the Soul,

Bill Austin