Celebrating A Dark Night Of The Soul

When you are at your lowest point, perhaps it is time to celebrate. You are in a state of healing, of shadow work leading to growth, of transformation - towards beauty, towards abundance, towards every possibility that life can offer you. In this short talk, I share how my life fell apart and how I am celebrating the process of putting it back together, better than it ever has been. Who is willing to join me for a look into the dark night of the soul?

Transcript

So this content will be a little bit different to my usual here.

I want to share with you a story of me celebrating a dark night of the soul.

I've been going through some up and downs recently.

I've lost a job that I've had for five years,

No fault of my own,

Just a funding change resulting in that work no longer being available.

This resulted in not only a loss of income,

But a loss of friendship and connection.

It's painful.

At the same time,

I've had issues relating to the house I'm living in.

It was getting sold,

Made me have to move.

And compounding all of that is mental health issues.

Struggles with anxiety and panic attacks all led up to me seeking help from a doctor,

A medical solution.

I was seeing a therapist for years and she said,

You're in crisis,

You need some help.

So I went to the doctor.

That doctor put me onto medication that catastrophically failed.

Now to be clear,

I encourage people to take medication if it helps them and if it's been prescribed by a medical professional who knows what they're doing.

But for me,

I tried three different medications and they made it so much worse.

The anxiety was gone,

But so was everything else.

And I realized that I would prefer to be anxious and angry than apathetic and that I can't live life hoping for hope.

It's unsustainable.

I called my doctor and I had a phone discussion with him and I'm like,

Hey,

I want to get off this medication.

And he said,

No,

Stay on it.

And if you need to,

Take Valiums to survive until you see a psychiatrist who will presumably take over and give you more medication.

And that made me angry and it sparked something in me.

It told me that there is a fire still in me,

A drive to survive that I haven't felt for months,

For years.

And it made me realize that no,

I am going to take charge of my life.

I'm going to get off this medication.

I'm still going to see the therapists.

I'm still going to go see the psychiatrist.

But right now I'm taking my healing into my own hands.

Right now I am going to do what I feel is right for me.

Now once again,

I don't advise this to anyone else because it's me directly going against a medical practitioner giving me advice.

By all accounts,

It's stupid.

However,

I do not regret my decision because despite the impacts of coming off the medication,

Despite the come down,

Despite all of those bad feelings,

I am now feeling better.

The intuitive voice inside was screaming at me to take life seriously,

To start,

To go.

There's that idea of the dark night of the soul,

A deep spiritual journey,

A moment of true surrender,

Letting go.

And that's the moment where the healing journey begins.

It's like a spiritual odyssey.

And if you're listening to these words,

Maybe you can relate.

It's that feeling of aloneness because you're traveling through your own soul and delving into the world and becoming more than what you are,

Than what you've ever been.

I try to share my process.

I try to share the darkness to sort of highlight the pain that I'm going through,

Both in this context and everywhere that I am online in person with my clients everywhere.

I share the truth.

It's not pretty,

But I don't hold myself up to a perfect account.

Life is messy.

You go up and down.

I was talking to a friend and she said that I shouldn't outsource my healing to another person.

Healing needs to come from within.

Now that healing might be the taking of medication.

It might be the listening to therapists.

It might be the reading of books.

It might be listening to talks like this one.

But it's a attitude,

An idea,

A worldview of taking charge of yourself and your life and your healing and following that intuition.

It might be making life changes,

Starting exercise regimes,

Trying yoga,

Doing a martial art,

Whatever.

But it's listening to yourself and it's trusting yourself.

This is idea that happy people are happy when they have low expectations and high acceptance.

Low expectations doesn't mean that you're thinking low of people.

It just means that you're not expecting them to do anything.

You take what you get.

You accept.

A lot of internal suffering and pain comes from when we expect something of ourselves that we never can attain,

The unattainable standards.

When we expect something from a partner or a kid or a parent that they just can't live up to.

It's better to have low expectations than high levels of acceptance.

That's a practice.

I'm trying to accept where I am.

Since going through this journey,

I discovered that there is a level of bipolar disorder in my family.

My grandma had it,

A uncle of mine had it,

And a cousin of mine has it.

And chances are,

I do too.

And it explains a lot.

I've got big dreams,

Big desires.

I do a lot.

And then I come down and I crash and I burn and it's terrible.

Highs and lows.

But I never sort of looked at it through the bipolarity lens.

But now I am.

And that's helping me.

It's helping me to accept the reality.

And I was looking at it,

Perhaps wrongly,

As being too high or too low.

But it just is what it is.

It's only too much if the functionality drops.

So that's a matter of seeking the external help,

Seeking the support from those around me to notice and highlight.

Say,

Hey,

You seeming quite up today.

Just flagging that.

Or hey,

Like you seeming a bit down today.

Just flagging that.

That thing that you said you were going to do or that you're stopping doing.

Let's talk about it.

From there I'm going to establish crisis plans and other things to help me if I'm feeling too high,

If I'm feeling too low,

If I'm feeling too anxious,

And if I'm having a panic attack.

All of those need and deserve different responses.

I want to be able to just simply sit and rest.

You know,

When the sun's shining,

To get out there and just feel it for feeling it's sake.

To just embrace reality.

Sitting in the sun and not lamenting the fact that it's going to disappear.

What am I doing?

I'm just sitting here and embracing my truth,

My groove,

My love,

My life,

My everything.

This is what I am doing and I am grateful for that fact.

That is what I'm going to try to do.

It is my daily sadhana.

The thing I'm going to be working on.

Handling the process of just being present on a daily basis.

I'm going to sit in the sun.

I'm going to smell the roses.

I'm going to play with my children and just embrace life.

Just the food that I'm eating and take one slow mindful breath every day.

I'm going to stop blaming the outside world for the state of my inside mind.

Yes,

Bad stuff happens.

Yes,

Things will go wrong.

Yes,

I will lose my job and may have to move my house and who knows any other problems that I might face.

But my mind is where I live and I'm going to reclaim that space.

I'm going to be present.

Not focusing on the past.

Not living in the future.

Right here,

Right now,

In this moment.

And I invite you to come along in that journey with me.

Embrace the present moment.

Accept your darkness.

Walk through it.

Move through it and be the best version of you can be in this moment.

Lower those expectations and accept.

Accept yourself.

Accept those around you.

Don't let people bully you or push you over you or become a walking mat.

Someone that you can be stood on and used.

I'm not saying to do that.

That's not about acceptance.

Accept it in the moment but you can still take action to heal,

To grow,

To protect yourself.

It's about accepting reality as it is for what it is right now because only from a place of acceptance can you move.

I'm looking at my mental health in the same way that I look at my physical health.

I've embraced that cliche.

When I broke my ankle,

I still exercised.

I still lived.

I still did what I needed to do.

So in the same sense,

When I'm down,

When I'm up,

When I'm anxious,

When I'm anything,

I'm going to accept that fact and still live my life.

This life is meant to be lived,

Not observed and then given up upon.

So like I said,

I invite you to come with me.

To walk through,

To celebrate the dark night of the soul and to move to the future together,

Healing and growing.

Thank you for listening and have a great day.

Reviews

Thank you for sharing. I pray that your challenges come to peace. I feel you, sending loving vibes your way 💚✨

That was better than therapy because honestly the dark night of the soul could be quite debilitating and you need to keep going when that happens. This talk, is exactly what I need to hear when I'm in that state of mind and even when I'm not like right now. I think by listening to it when I'm not in that state of mind it can better prep me to know what to do when it happens.

Thank you for sharing. I have noticed many people struggling with similar stories, myself included ✨

THIS IS EVERYTHING!!!
Before you mentioned BP I was 100% connected to the words. I have BP1 and have this year done the exact same thing! This app is a tremendous help with that. Your words and thought are moving, touching and make me feel like Yes! I can do this today! Thank you so much for sharing your story Zachary🕊️🥰🧘‍♀️

It was really kind of you to share this. I have been where you are, and in my experience, medication is not only not the answer, but it creates a larger problem. I went off on medication two years ago. In contrary to my doctors advice, and it was the best thing I’ve done for myself. I’m not in a great place now either so your talk was really helpful and a wonderful reminder one thing I know is that I will never turn to medication again. Under any circumstances I’m just trying to come up with new ways to feel better. Thank you for this talk. I am praying for you and your circumstances.