Dark Night Of The Soul - A Beginner's Guide To Surviving

Are you having a Dark Night of the Soul? I've had 4 (so far). And I've realised that this transformative phase of personal growth that challenges your mental health happens to most of us. Navigating it is definitely hard; but, if you understand what's happening to you, then you can emerge on the other side a happier, healthier, and more empowered version of you.

In this talk, you'll find answers to these questions:
- What is a Dark Night of the Soul?
- How do you know if you're having a Dark Night of the Soul?
- How do you cope during this existential crisis?

Transcript

What is a dark night of the soul?

Are you having a dark night of the soul right now?

And if so,

What can you do about it?

Today I'm going to answer all of those questions for you and maybe even help you change your life for the better.

But before I answer those questions,

Hi my name is Clare Sivanovich and I'm a qualified naturopath,

Nutritionist,

Medical herbalist and a human design analyst.

I have also been through many dark nights of the souls,

So if you find that you are in this space right now,

Please know that I understand,

I empathize and I am here to support you as well.

The first question we're going to answer is,

What is a dark night of the soul?

I really sat with the best way to answer this question for you and yes I've had a lot of experience with this situation but I didn't want to give you an explanation that was biased or overly colored by my experience.

So what I've done is I've tuned in to my higher self and my spirit guides and used my clear cognizance to channel a message for you that kind of takes out my bias about what a dark night of the soul is and I'm going to share the message that came through me with you now.

I'm going to read it to you so that I give it to you verbatim.

Okay so here we go.

Almost every human endures a dark night of the soul.

You all have ups and downs.

It's a normal part of the earthly experience but most of you view the down times as bad.

This is not correct.

Going through highs is just as normal as stumbling through lows.

There is no need to judge either as both contribute to your evolution.

Without the down times most humans do not have the fuel to dive down into the shadow parts of you that need attention.

If you become ripe for growth but push it away or deny it,

A way to instigate the growth can find you often in an uncomfortable way.

Enter a dark night of the soul and sometimes depression or anxiety.

As your saying goes change or be changed.

It's when you're in the eye of your personal storm that you are having a dark night of the soul.

You're down the well and you're being given an opportunity to slow down and ponder the shadows within you.

The ones that are holding you back from living your highest potential.

This is when everything may feel difficult and you may lack hope but really you're becoming aware of the parts of you that are demanding,

That are craving your attention.

The time has come for you to be transformed.

If you've been called down the well your higher self is there with you.

Together you're working to shed the old ways that no longer serve you and begin stepping into a new version of you.

There is nothing to fear.

This is a healthy and normal human process.

As humanity evolves and humans own more of their authenticity on a daily basis this journey will become less common.

But until that happens a dark night of the soul is one way for you to shift into more of the real authentic version of you.

If you are in this experience right now trust that you can move through it.

Know that it will not last forever because change is inevitable.

After you emerge you will be more aligned with your soul's purpose,

Radiance,

Abundance,

Well-being and joy.

Yes it is worth it.

Okay that was a pretty deep response.

I'm sure you will agree and that explanation goes I'm sure way beyond what I was capable to find the words for.

So I hope that something in that channeled message helped you understand what a dark night of the soul actually is.

Now we're going to look at how can you know if you are in a dark night of the soul right now.

A dark night of the soul often begins after sickness,

Injury,

Relationship breakdown,

Shock,

Trauma,

Grief or some other kind of loss.

When you're in a situation where you feel like the control has completely been taken away from you and destabilizes you,

It's something that's completely unexpected.

It's not uncommon for someone to spiral down into the experience we know as the dark night of the soul.

Now these emotions that feel overwhelming,

That feel heavy,

They can trigger symptoms within our body.

Now a lot of people I'm going to say mistakenly believe that the symptoms can trigger maybe the dark night of the soul feelings but from my experience and my perspective and I've been in the health industry since 1999 now,

It is my observation that it's our emotions that it's when we feel like we're down deep in that well that the physical symptoms arise.

So if you are having a dark night of the soul,

It's not uncommon to feel fatigue,

Lethargy,

Extra tired,

Depression,

Anxiety,

Panic attacks,

You may have adrenal burnout,

You may feel hopeless,

Despair,

Apathy and you may see no way out of your struggles.

The good news is there is a way out of your struggle but it does take a process if you are down the bottom of that well to recognize that there is actually a ladder that you can climb to get out of it.

Now as I mentioned before I've been through a few of these experiences myself.

Now all of them were triggered by sickness and injuries that took a long time to heal.

I've been through chronic fatigue syndrome,

I've been through let's say two different journeys where I had injuries that left me on crutches for six months each time and then it took me a further three plus months to learn to walk properly.

I've had a major shoulder and rotator cuff injury which left me unable to hold even the weight of this cup properly.

All of these experiences really pushed me out of my comfort zone unexpectedly and they took away the control that I felt in that I had in my life and they led me to a place where I had to like the universe I felt like I was being pushed into myself to analyze my life and my situation to see okay maybe something needs to change in my world because this healing is taking way longer than normal in pretty much every situation that I had and in every situation I did dive deep down eventually after it's natural to kind of like wallow for a while and feel like a bit of a victim and feel sad and feel upset and feel like the world's against you like what am I going to do like it's okay to be there but it's when you stay there that's a problem.

Hopefully that feeling of sadness will trigger you to look within and go okay what do I need to change now and I tell you every single one of those situations that I have been through I came out of the sickness,

The injury,

The dark night of the soul a transformed person a new person and in my channel message the last thing they said was it is worth it and I 100% agree with that when you're in the middle of the storm it doesn't feel like it's worth it but once you've moved through it and you can and you've done the work you've made the changes that you need to change within your life which then allows your body to naturally heal because you're more aligned with what you actually really want need and who you authentically are healing just naturally occurs when you do that so if you can take a bird's eye view from that experience maybe after it's done you will I'm sure agree with me that it is worth going through the experience to see the transformation that occurs within yourself so please know that there is hope if you are in this experience right now so what can you do if you're in a dark night of the soul right now well the first thing that I recommend is being patient you really need to be patient with yourself because this type of experience this type of healing it doesn't have a set timeline how long is the piece of string that is the question that kind of relates to someone being in a dark night of the soul I'm not saying that it is endless and it will last forever no not at all what I'm saying is that these experiences they're often connected with a lot of divine timing and if you continue to do the inner work of looking within and realizing where you need to make little tweaks and changes in your life noticing the things that didn't feel good before noticing the things that you feel like really are not authentic for you and changing those so that they do feel more authentic for you and your life the more you can just focus on doing that and forget about your timeline of physical healing forget about your timeline of emotional healing and embrace patience instead I promise you that you will step out of this experience the more you commit to being your authentic self and following through with your wants and with what your needs what feels correct for you what you need the higher experience of what you're evolving into will find you I have found that there can be a lot of planetary influence in these situations so you may be going through a dark night of the soul when you have a huge astrological Pluto transit occurring in your natal chart or a big Saturn transit going on for example in your astrology chart this isn't true for everyone I've just noticed that it can be quite common and my point in saying this is that if there is a planetary influence going on in your life right now it means that you are supported to get through what the universe is saying hey now is the time to look at this thing make these changes you really can but it also means that the timeline is not a physical thing that you can control have patience because as the planets are continually changing and moving as will the situation in your life now the second thing that I suggest if you are in a dark night of the soul right now is to prioritize self-love prioritize self-care do the things do the little things that make you feel good watch your favorite movie drink your favorite drink allow yourself to have a massage buy yourself your favorite massage oil and give yourself a massage even if it's just on your hands do the little things each day that feel good for you because they are acts of kindness and every act of kindness that you give yourself that you genuinely want that is not someone from the outside world saying I think you should do this to feel better no no doing the little things that make you feel good on the inside that you genuinely want that spark that inside of you that's healing that's nurturing that is what this journey wants you to do okay so whatever that is great well within the realm of ethics of course but I do hope that you will notice when something inside you goes oh I think I want to do that okay maybe go do that now following on the third recommendation that I have for you is be in nature nature is one of the most healing energies things that you can be around in this experience here on earth there is a natural frequency a natural vibration when you are in nature that you absorb that your that your cells notice and they help to return to their natural state of being their natural state of well-being their natural state of allowing and the natural state of receiving what it is that you need to move into a higher version of you so the more devices that you're around um the more ipads phones tvs sitting next to the modem if you're close to that if you sleep with a modem in your room shut that shut that down at night the more electrical things that you're around during the day the more it can distort your energy field and the more it can feel difficult for you to connect with that which feels good and I'm going to say healing for you so be in nature let your feet touch the grass if you can um touch the trees have the trees if you want smell the flowers just allow yourself to admire the view of nature anywhere that in itself is very healing now the final suggestion that I have for you is get support if you do feel like you're going through a dark night of the soul and you just feel completely lost please reach out for support now that may be a counselor that may be a psychologist that may be a friend it may be hello a human design analyst um one of my dark night of the soul experiences led me to find human design and therefore it led me down a rabbit hole to the depths of understanding myself so much that I felt so authentic that I thought wow this is such a powerful tool that can help transform my life that it can help transform other people's lives that I felt called to study this science this art form that is human design and now I use my human design in combination with my naturopathy often I use the human design more because I have discovered that it's energetics of who you are it's the emotions of who you are it's being the authentic you that is what allows you to activate your healing physically mentally emotionally in every single situation so don't be shy if you feel like you need help to talk to someone or if you feel like you need help in understanding who you are that is why there are healers there are many therapists out there who can support you

Reviews

This gave me hope which is no small thing! Thank you.