A Mindful Perspective
Welcome to my podcast! I'm Nick Levesque, and I'm on a mission to help you navigate life's challenges with a mindful perspective. Join me every week as I dive deep into the realms of mindset, spirituality, and personal growth. Drawing from my own experiences, I want to provide you with tools, strategies, insights, and inspiring stories that will help you go from where you are now, to where you want to be.
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A Mindful Perspective
Emerging from Darkness: The Power of the Dark Night of the Soul
Have you ever felt like a prisoner of your own mind, completely disconnected from yourself, or as if you've hit rock bottom? That's exactly what we'll discuss in this episode as we explore the concept of the dark night of the soul. In today's episode, I share my personal journey through intense periods of struggle and transformation. I'll share how hitting rock bottom can often be the catalyst to a powerful shift in conciousness, a rebirth. I also highlight the importance that "awakening" is accessible to everyone, regardless of their religious background.
We'll diver deeper into the process of spiritual transformation, putthing emphasis on the idea of reconnecting with our authentic needs—physical, emotional, and spiritual. This journey isn't just about letting go of old patterns; it's about coming home to ourselves. Through my experiences and reflections, you'll understand that while the journey through the dark night of the soul is rewarding, it requires that we face ourselves fully and learn to accept ourselves as we are. We are not broken nor are we something that needs to be fixed.
Lastly, we'll talk about how the dark night of the soul can be seen as an opportunity for growth. It's important that through these difficult times, we try not to turn to our vices and allow ourselves go through that experience fully. However, it's also important to note that we don't need to face these difficulties alone. It's important to seek professional help as needed.
Hello everyone and welcome to A Mindful Perspective. I'm your host, nick Levesque, certified Spiritual Life Coach, and I'm here to share insights into my journey of mindfulness and self-discovery. Each week, we'll explore mindset, spirituality and personal growth to help you navigate life's challenges, with practical strategies and inspiring stories. Let's dive in. Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of A Mindful Perspective. In today's episode, I want us to talk about a topic called the dark night of the soul, and maybe this is something you've heard about before, but it's something that I feel is very important to talk about because at a certain point in our lives, I think that a lot of us go through a very difficult time and it could be that we're going through our own dark night of the soul, and for me personally, I wish I had known this before, because I didn't really know what I was going through and I just just felt so disconnected and I'll share my story later. But again, I think having that knowledge before would have really kind of helped me go through this with a bit more clarity and understanding. And I was also talking to someone this week who she was saying she thought she was going through her dark night of the soul and, in my personal opinion, I think she was, and this is why I was really kind of inspired to talk about this in today's episode.
Speaker 1:So we will be diving into the dark night of the soul. So, first and foremost, let's start by defining what the dark night of the soul is. Okay, so the dark night of the soul essentially is the moment in your life when you feel like you've hit rock bottom, like I think that's the best way I can describe it. It's it's really quite literally, one of the darkest points that you're going through at a specific point in time, and something that's very important to remember here is that each individual's dark night of the soul is unique to their own subjective experiences and their own life circumstances, right, so just really, it depends on what's going on in their life at that point in time. The dark night of the soul, like I was just saying, is very unique to everyone, right? Everyone's got their own subjective and everyone's got their own event that's triggered the dark night of the soul. So for some people, that could be a specific moment in time. Okay, it could be the death of a loved one, it could be, as an example, the death of a child, the death of a partner, the death of someone in the family that really triggers that dark night of the soul. Okay, it could also be that they find out that they have a life-threatening illness, right, or an illness of some sort that really leads them to feel like they're hitting rock bottom. It could also be an accumulation of events over time which leads someone to hit rock bottom. Okay, and this, for me personally, is kind of how I experience my own dark night of the soul, which I'll talk about later.
Speaker 1:But again, the dark night of the soul can be many things. It's not just one thing. It's not just necessarily one thing that happens, right, it could be, but it also could be an accumulation of events over time. Okay, as an example, maybe you've been living on autopilot for so long, doing the same things every day, not feeling like your life is meaningful, or you're not feeling fulfilled in any way, and after a certain amount of time maybe that goes on for five, six years you actually hit rock bottom. And the thing about the dark net of the soul as well is it's typically a type of death that you die, okay, and obviously you're not really dying here, but it's, for me, the best way I can explain this. It's like the death of an experience, right? The death of a story, the death of a narrative that you've been holding on, the death of something is what I like to call it. Okay, so, as an example, in my case it was the death of my autopilot behaviors that I had for so many years, right, the constant weed, the mindless scrolling, all these different things, and for me, that's really what I mean when I say the death of an experience. Right, it's the death of those behaviors, the death of the story that I was holding on to for so long. As an example, and again, just to clarify something here as well, the dark night of the soul does not necessarily mean it's only one specific event. Okay, it could happen different times in our lives, right. Maybe it happens once in our 20s and then again in our 40s. When some other life event happens, right, when some other circumstance that's out of our control really brings us down or puts us or makes us feel like we're hitting rock bottom is an example, right. So I just wanted to clarify that, because it's so different for everyone. It's not just this one specific event, right, and for a lot of people it could be a specific event. It could be an accumulation of events leading to one thing, but it could also happen to us at different points in our lives and in our journey. However, with the dark night of the soul, the important thing to remember is that with death comes rebirth. Okay, so we've all heard this cliche saying like a phoenix rising from the ashes is an example. This is very true when it comes to the dark night of the soul.
Speaker 1:Okay, typically, the dark night of the soul leads to an awakening, or maybe you've heard the term spiritual awakening, and I just want to clarify something here. Okay, everyone can have a spiritual awakening or an awakening. That word sometimes can kind of hold, if you will, a religious meaning. Okay, and again, I have nothing against religion at all. I just want to clarify that. But there is a big difference between spirituality and religion and they are not the same thing. Okay, to have a spiritual awakening, you do not need to be a monk in a white robe or an orange robe, sitting on a rock, meditating somewhere. Okay, I just really want to clarify that.
Speaker 1:Anyone can have a spiritual awakening, and to me, the best way I like to explain this is it's called, basically, waking up. Okay, you are waking up to your conditioned way of being. You are witnessing and reconnecting with your authentic needs of the self. Okay, you are being more attuned with the physical, emotional and spiritual needs that you need in your life, essentially. And another thing is that you come out of this experience with a new perspective. It's almost like a new state of consciousness, if you will, because again you're waking up. You're waking up to reality and, to me personally, what I noticed is that you know life had meaning again.
Speaker 1:Right, you realize that you needed to go through this experience in order to bring about that spiritual awakening. You needed to go through this to understand that it was time to let go of your old patterns. It was time to let go of the stories, the narratives and the behaviors that you've been holding on to for so long. Okay, so the way I like to see it is that death of the old self brings birth to the true self right, to who you are, to that genuine being that you are. And the thing to remember is that the dark night of the soul will last a different amount of time for each individual right, because we have different circumstances. We've got different situations and we have different things that triggered our dark nights of the soul, and also once we go through our awakening.
Speaker 1:There's something I just really want to mention here, right, once we start kind of waking up I need to be honest about something it's not always easy, right. It's not just that you kind of wake up and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, my goodness, right, like I see the light at the end of the tunnel and then everything's fixed as an example, right, not at all, because now you're waking up to old ways, you're waking up to old condition patterns as an example, right. You're waking up to different things in your life and that can also be very challenging as well. So it's not just a walk in the park, right, it's you hit rock bottom, so you realize that you need help, you realize that something needs to change. But to make that change can also be hard. But it's very, very rewarding, right.
Speaker 1:But I just really want to clarify that, because when you start waking up to things, it can be very difficult at first, because you're going to be forced to meet yourself, right, you have to face yourself at a certain point, which is very hard. It's very difficult. You have to meet and face those shadow parts of yourselves that maybe you've kind of repressed or suppressed or put away, or maybe you've been numbing them away, smoking them away, drinking them away all these different things as well, right? So again, waking up is a profound change. It can really bring about a life lasting change, I would say. But to just say that awakening is easy and a walk in the park would be not true at all. Right, it wouldn't be true at all. So I just really want to clarify that as well.
Speaker 1:And if I could describe the dark night of the soul in one sentence, I would say it's coming home to ourselves, right. It's really realizing that we are worthy just as we are and we are whole, just as we are. So, just as an example, let's say that your dark night of the soul was triggered by your partner leaving you. Okay, maybe you were in a relationship for 20 years with someone and then they left, as an example. Okay, that could definitely trigger a dark night of the soul. That could definitely trigger someone to hit rock bottom, okay. So this is what I mean. It's it's.
Speaker 1:You know, once you've hit that rock bottom and once you're starting to wake up, you realize that you are whole as you are, you realize that you don't need anyone else to complete you, because the only person you need to complete yourself is yourself, right? So you're no longer, you're starting to understand that you are worth so much more and, again, the only person that can complete you is yourself. And as you start realizing these things, I find that from my own personal subjective experience again, is that I kind of went on this self-discovery right, this journey of self-discovery and getting to know myself, and it's really about discovering yourself. And I think you know, I noticed I was looking at the word self-discovery and it's two words, right and I was just thinking to myself like, wow, it's really the discovery of the self, it's the discovery of who you are, and by self here I actually mean the word self, as in some people call this the soul, some people call this consciousness, some people call this spirit, whatever they want to call it right, there's so many different names for this, but I think it's that part of us, and in Jungian psychology the self is a type of archetype that everyone has. It's really an energy of our own being. It's really that genuine energy of who we are at our core, who we've always been. This self was there when we were a child, as an example, and it is still there right now. As human beings, we're complex creatures. We We've got multiple different parts of ourselves, right, we've got some angry parts, we've got some sad parts, we've got all these different things. But I truly believe that the self is the genuine voice, right, that can really step in and say like, okay, hello, parts, as an example. Right, you kind of talk to your parts and it's the one that's really able to kind of direct the other parts. It's the one that's really able to kind of stand on top of everything else, kind of look down and see what's going on. Right, it's that voice that is able to guide you in the right direction, right, that's, you know, and again, this could be an episode on its own, but that's kind of just how I would explain this, and I'm trying to explain this in a way that's kind of accessible to everyone here.
Speaker 1:But the self, to me, right, the soul, the consciousness, whatever you want to call it, it's really who we are at our core, and the reason I'm saying this is because I think this is a big part of the dark night of the soul, right, is that disconnection from the self. But once we go through that awakening, it's like we're reconnecting to ourself, right, and that allows us to be more authentic, live an authentic life and really do the things that we're meant to be doing, doing the things that we want to be doing. And as I was putting this episode together, I wanted to talk about different stages that we go through when we're going through the dark night of the soul, and I found an article on mindbodygreencom which really resonated with me and what I was also going through when I was going through my dark night of the soul and I wanted to share that with everyone. And typically, there are six stages of the dark night. Okay, I'm just going to kind of go through these here and then I'll share my own story to kind of really put this into perspective, okay.
Speaker 1:So, first and foremost, there is the stage one, right, which is the major disruption or events, right, whatever caused the dark night of the soul. Stage two is the loss of direction and hope. Stage three is really hitting that rock bottom, okay, like we've talked about before. Stage four is waking up to the truth, right, it's kind of that going through the wow, that spiritual awakening, right. Stage five is called spiritual study, if you will. And then stage six is authentic living. Okay, so I'm going to share my story and we're going to go through these stages as well, through my own subjective experience. So, to start this off, let's start with stage number one, which is the major disruption, or events. Okay, so, as you know, I've talked about my story a few times here and I'm going to talk about it again today because, again, if you're new here, you may not have heard this before, but it's also to really give the context here. Okay.
Speaker 1:So, in short, basically, my own dark night of the soul was kind of an accumulation of events, right. So when I was 21, 22 years old I've mentioned this before, but I was just a prisoner of my own mind. I really didn't know how to sit with myself. I was definitely not my best friend, that's for sure, right, and I think that's a big part of the dark night of the soul and that awakening is becoming your own friend, right, or developing a relationship with yourself, which I generally did not have at the time. So I was a prisoner of my mind, always stuck in my head and to me. At a certain point I almost felt depressed, right, almost like a spiritual depression, if you will. And this is when that was kind of the major disruptor of events, right. I just didn't know how to sit with myself, my emotions, et cetera. I was numbing myself all the time. I was smoking a bunch of weed, you know. I was constantly mindlessly scrolling all these different things right Constantly on Netflix, just really kind of doing anything to avoid how I feel. Okay.
Speaker 1:Then stage number two was really the loss of direction and hope. So this for me personally and again, these stages will be different for everyone but the loss of direction and hope for me went many years, right, it wasn't just like a month thing, it was like, okay, where am I going as an example? Right, I felt hopeless, I felt as if kind of life had no meaning, right, it felt very weird. I just I really didn't. I felt disconnected, if you will, right. So I had that loss of direction and loss of hope, right. And this again lasted for a while.
Speaker 1:And the rock bottom for me, right, which is stage number three, that rock bottom for me was really when, you know, I had bought my house. I had, you know, I thought, okay, like you know, I will buy my house, I'll buy my car, all these different things, and you know, I thought that that would fulfill me, right, I thought that these things would fulfill me, would make me feel better. I had a good job, I had a car, I had a house. I felt, you know, on paper, quote, unquote I was successful for my age and such, right. I'm not saying that to brag, I'm just saying that to really kind of paint the better picture here. Okay, and even though I had all these quote unquote, material things, I never felt more disconnected from myself, right.
Speaker 1:And then this was when I was really starting to kind of hit rock bottom. But what made me hit rock bottom was when I got the call that my mother had cancer, right, so she had cancer on top of everything she was already going through for the past 15 years. And that, for me, is when I truly hit rock bottom. And for me, specifically in my own journey, this stage lasted longer. Right, it wasn't just an overnight thing. I was stuck in this stage for a little while, which is why I was saying earlier, it's important to remember that the dark night of the soul lasts a different amount of time for everyone, right? But I truly believe that for a lot of people, this is what tends to happen when we want to wake up and when we start waking up.
Speaker 1:And there's a great quote that I read by Richard Bandler. And there's a great quote that I read by Richard Bandler, and he said people must be so sick of having the problem that they decide they really want to change. And that, for me, was the battling this as best as she could. But like I was so tired of feeling how I felt that I I knew I had no other choice but to make a change. And I think that's the thing for a lot of people is we? We get so sick of feeling a certain way where we're down so much, right, we're so stuck into that rock bottom and we're so sick of it. It's so painful that we want to make a change because we know, if we don't, you know what else are we going to do? Right? So we need to make that change.
Speaker 1:And this is where, for me, I got into stage four, right, which was waking up to the truth, right, and it's like I said earlier there is light on the other side of rock bottom. Okay, it's a steady climb. Sometimes it's going to be hard, sometimes it's going to be difficult, we're going to have to face parts of ourselves that we don't want to face, but, in my personal opinion, that's how we return to a sense of wholeness. After your darkest hours, you begin to wake up to that truth and again I just want to emphasize this again it will not be easy, but, even though you might sometimes feel stressed, sometimes you won't really know what to do, but I truly believe that it's an opportunity to go deeply into yourself, to go into that journey of self-discovery like we talked about earlier. It's a journey back to yourself, it's coming home. That's what I said earlier.
Speaker 1:Okay, and the different thing here, right, the different circumstance or the different perspective that I want to kind of share in this stage four of waking up, is that you will finally be ready to face what is, instead of running away from it, right, like you did before. Right, and running away for different people can be different things. Right, it could be, you know, smoking it away, having countless amount of sex just because you want to not feel as an example, right, all these different things are so many ways to run away from things. Right, so many ways. But this is where you start to say enough is enough and you're finally ready to start facing those parts of yourselves that you were not ready to face before. Now this prepares us for stage five, which is spiritual study. Okay, and I think with this one I'm going to give my own personal experience, opinion and understanding of this.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I think, in this stage, for me, specifically, what tended to happen? It was like okay, I'm starting to understand myself a bit more, I'm starting to know myself a bit more, and my purpose at that time? Right, because again, I think life purpose is way too broad. I think we have different purposes for different times in our lives. Okay, I don't think our purpose is just one thing and we're set in stone, or that's set in stone for the rest of our life, right?
Speaker 1:So in that point in time, my purpose was to heal myself, right, my purpose was to help myself. So, with this goal in mind, that's exactly what I did, right? I noticed I was more drawn to spiritual teachings and psychology and reading and different types of things, right? So I went on this soul searching journey which kind of allowed me to understand more about myself and know more about myself, and this, I think, is what spiritual study is to me right. It's kind of just like okay, you've got that goal, now you've got an understanding of what's held you back for so long, and now you want to make sure that you're learning more about yourself so that you don't go back to what broke you initially. Right, and to me, this is what really helped me. Right, it was the reading, it was doing different types of personality tests to get an understanding of myself. It was going to therapy, right? Also, working with a therapist and working with a coach to really help me understand myself. And I think this is something that's so important to remember.
Speaker 1:Right Is you do not need to go through this alone. You can actually reach out for help. You can work with a therapist, you can work with a coach, you can work with someone to help you kind of go through this dark night of the soul, so that you don't have to go through this alone. And if you're interested in this type of support or in this type of guidance, this is something that I love to help clients with in my one-on-one coaching. So, if you're interested in that, I do have the link to my Instagram in the podcast description, as well as the link to my website. So if you're interested in learning more about my one-on-one coaching what I do specifically you can, of course, visit these links, or you can shoot me a message directly on Instagram. I would love to talk to you as well.
Speaker 1:However, really just to drive this home is you do not need to go through this alone. Okay, and this again will look different to different people, right, for some people, they might go out and try different activities they've never tried. They might read certain books. It all depends on your own awakening right. It all depends on your own awakening right. It all depends on your own circumstance. But in my personal experiences, I slowly started to understand that I was the creator of my life, right, and I was really starting to build the life that I wanted.
Speaker 1:Now, the final stage of the dark night of the soul is really when you have that greater understanding of life's bigger picture. You know for you in your own subjective experience, the lessons you've learned and the wounds that you've healed as well. And also, just for me personally, I just found it made me appreciate people a lot more, because I understood like I'm not the only one going through this, but there are so many other people going through this and it's so hard, it's so painful, right. But once you've kind of transcended all of that this is what I mean by you start to live authentically, right, you start to understand yourself so much better that you have an understanding of your strengths, your weaknesses, your core values, what is important in your life, and you start kind of diminishing the things, the people, the circumstances that no longer resonate with you, so that you can live authentically as yourself. You really start to not care as much as what people think. So you start wearing what you want, you start doing what you want and not caring as much as what people think about you or what people may say. As an example At least that was you know my own subjective experience. Again, like I keep saying, this is very different for everyone, but I'm only sharing my own personal journey here. But again, truly, that authentic living is really that rebirth like we talked about, right, it's that phoenix rising from the ashes, right. I truly believe that you start to get a better understanding of who you are, your values, what really is important in your life and, more importantly, you start living for yourself and not other people, and you start doing the things that bring you joy and you start living that purpose that's meant for you.
Speaker 1:And another quote that I want to share by psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. Elizabeth said the most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss and have found their way out of those depths. And I love this quote and I found it to be so, so, so true and so powerful. Right, because it's true, a lot of us, a lot of people I know personally, who have gone through hell, are so kind, they're beautiful people because they know, because they've been there. Right, they've experienced hell, and I think the only way to get to heaven's gates is really by going through hell first. Right, that's really what I personally believe and have come to understand. So, again, this was really my own journey through the dark night of the soul, and I hope that this can kind of shed some light on what the dark night of the soul is.
Speaker 1:Right, and just a few things that I want to share before we wrap the episode up for today. First and foremost, the thing about the dark night of the soul is try to see it as an opportunity for growth. Okay, it won't last forever, but maybe it's something that needed to happen. Maybe it's something that you need to go through at a specific point in time, but I do believe that there is a lesson to be learned in everything that happens. Secondly, it's important that we don't run away from ourselves.
Speaker 1:Okay, when we are through this dark night of the soul, it's really important that we don't run away from the pain. We try not to numb ourselves or turn back to old addictive patterns or behaviors, right? Whether that's you know, substance, sex, all these different things. Right, the dark night of the soul is urging you to look at the patterns and behaviors that cause these issues in the first place, right? Is? The dark night of the soul is trying to teach you something. It's trying to make you look at yourself in a specific way, right, depending on, of course, the circumstance. But if you're someone whose dark night of the soul is in relation to this right, kind of like my own, then it's probably urging you to look at yourself in a different light, right, from a different perspective.
Speaker 1:And last but not least, the final point that I want to make here is really what I said earlier. Okay, you do not need to go through this alone. You can always seek professional help to ensure you get the support you need through your journey. Okay, this is so, so, so important and this is why I'm saying it again, because every dark night of the soul is different.
Speaker 1:Every dark night of the soul is triggered by something else, right, if you're someone going through a rough time because you've lost someone you care about you've lost, as an example, your partner. Maybe there was a death of a loved one in the family, as an example those things can be very, very hard to navigate by yourself and, in fact, with grief. Oftentimes, that grief needs to be witnessed as well. Right, it's a bit different than just kind of removing different patterns and behaviors from your life, as an example, right, this is why I'm saying each dark night of the soul is very different. So, again, if you're someone that needs that extra support, please reach out for help, because it's important to remember that there's a difference between feeling disconnected and being at rock bottom and feeling quote-unquote spiritually depressed and actually not being able to get out of it at all, right?
Speaker 1:So maybe, as an example, someone's going through their dark night of the soul but they're stuck, right, they're stuck for a significant amount of time. They do not see a light. Maybe they're actually depressed, right. Maybe they're actually going through a depression which does need professional support and professional help to address, right. So, again, I just really want to kind of paint that picture and really highlight that point, because I think it's so, so, so important. So, that being said, that's all I've got for you guys on today's episode. If you did like the episode, please feel free to leave a comment or review, share it. It really helps bring awareness to what I'm trying to do, which is really kind of, you know, spread this podcast on a broader scale to really help people just navigate everyday life challenges. So, again, with that being said, I hope you have a good week and I will catch you guys next week. Thank you.
