A recent podcast attempted to explore the Dark Night of the Soul, presenting it as an existential crisisāa painful yet natural phase of life brought on by breakups, loss, or stagnation. While well-intentioned, this framing reduces a sacred and profane initiation to something ordinary, something manageable, something merely psychological. But the Dark Night of the Soul is not something to be managedāit is something to be surrendered to, to be utterly consumed by.šļø
š The Dark Night of the Soul is Not a CrisisāIt is a Death
Many experience existential crises, grief, or the pain of repeating cycles. These are the precursors, the agonies that shake us loose from the illusions of control and identity. But the Dark Night itself?
š„ That is where suffering ends. š„
It is not an existential crisisāit is the obliteration of existential questioning itself. It does not cause pain; it delivers us from it. It is not an unraveling of beliefsāit is the moment we realize we no longer need them. It is not a descent into despairāit is falling into the boundless abyss of surrender and realizing you are held.
To call the Dark Night a ānatural, normal part of lifeā is like saying reaching Nirvana is like taking a nap. No. This is a passage through fire, the cosmic storm that rips through the soul and leaves only the indestructible behind. ā”
š The False Equivalency: Grief vs. the Dark Night
Grief is a part of life. It is heavy, it is human, and it seeks meaning. But the Dark Night of the Soul is beyond meaning.It is the sacred space between grief and praise, the void where identity dissolves and pure presence remains. āØ
In grief, we ache, we resist, we seek understanding. In the Dark Night, we are freed from all of that. The urge to know, to control, to define falls away. What remains is the silent hum of existence itself. It is neither light nor dark. It is both. It is everything and nothing.
āļø Where the Podcastās āPrinciplesā Miss the Mark
1ļøā£ āFeel Your Feelings and Drop the Storyā ā Almost, But Not Quite
Yes, the Dark Night strips away the narratives we once lived by. But this is not an intellectual processāit is an obliteration. The self dissolvesānot in fear, but in sweet oblivion, where the need to know or control disappears.
This is not about meditation as a tool to cope or escape. There is no escape. The Dark Night is not something we work throughāit is something we allow to take us. š
2ļøā£ āGive Love to Othersā ā A Profound Misunderstanding
The host suggests that giving to others provides relief from self-absorption. But giving of oneself to escape oneself is not loveāit is avoidance.
The Dark Night is the first time we finally, fully show up for ourselves. We do not need a reprieve from our suffering, because in the Dark Night, there is no suffering. There is only surrender. The call is inward. You do not give yourself away in the Dark Nightāyou gather yourself. šÆļø
To serve before the Dark Night is complete is to bypass the very transformation you were given.
3ļøā£ āMove Your Body Every Dayā ā Yes, But Not to Escape
The podcast describes the Dark Night as leading to stagnation, depression, and lethargy. This is not true.
The Dark Night is not stillnessāit is metamorphosis. š¦ The caterpillar in the cocoon is not restingāit is dissolving into something unrecognizable before becoming something divine. Even in stillness, you are in motion. Your body is being rewritten. Your very existence is being remade. Movement is not about āgetting out of it.ā It is about embodying the transformation.
š® The Dark Night is Not a ConceptāIt is the Threshold of the Sacred
My reaction to this podcast was not just frustrationāit was a knowing. A recognition that something sacred was being diluted, made palatable, made small.
And that is something I refuse to allow.
Because when we misunderstand the Dark Night, we keep people trapped in suffering. We teach them to avoid the surrender, to delay the transformation, to try to ācopeā with what must simply be released.
The Dark Night is not an idea. It is a passage. It is a holy dismantling.
It is not a storm to be weathered.
š„ It is the moment you realize you are the storm. š„
š The Invitation of the Dark Night
The Dark Night of the Soul isnāt just about questioning existence in an abstract or intellectual wayāitās a profound, visceral experience of dissonance between oneās inner knowing and the conditioned reality we navigate. Itās the moment when the structures, beliefs, or identities that once anchored you no longer hold, leaving you suspended in the vastness of awareness itself.
Itās about the disorientation of being awake in a world that doesnāt yet recognize itself. Itās the tension of knowing you are part of the whole, yet feeling the weight of separation. Itās the friction between the cosmic vastness of your being and the limitations of human experience. š
And yet, in that vastness, you begin to experience life as the love that exists between grief and praiseāa love that does not cling, does not demand, but simply is, filling the spaces where meaning once tried to hold dominion. š
š¹ Whatās left at the end of your sojourn into the Dark Night? š¹
šļø Liberation. A deeper surrender to the truth of who you truly areānot because the world validates it, but because you feel it in every fiber of your existence. The initiation is the breaking down of false constructs so that something more real, eternal, and aligned can emerge.
The Dark Night is a gift wrapped in fire.
š„ Let it burn. š„