Just Before Sunrise, there is a Dark Night

As soon as I saw this quote, I immediately knew I needed to write about it.  It’s so tragically beautiful and there are no adequate words to truly illustrate what a Dark Night of the Soul feels like.  For me, It felt like I was one step away from death.  I mean, physically, emotionally, spiritually, I was lost.  I was hardened.  It was the ultimate closing of the heart for me.

The week my Dark Night started, was also the week that I experienced back pain that incapacitated me.  I couldn’t get out of bed.  I couldn’t sleep because the pain was so great.  There was no position that I was comfortable with.  I could barely use the restroom and when I forced myself to do that, I was in tears the pain was so torturous.  I eventually had to be chair lifted into an ambulance because I was that immobile due to the pain.  This coupled with my person leaving me…well, I didn’t want to exist. When I had any moment reprieve from the physical pain, the emotional pain would hit me that much harder. And vice versa.  I was in a back and forth between the two, both competing with who could injure me the most and make me feel the worst.  And let me tell you, it was a toss-up.

The excruciating back pain subsided, although for a month afterwards, I could barely walk 100 feet without having to pause, squat to release the pressure of the pinched nerve, and then stand again.  I was walking at a very slow pace and for a few weeks there, I had feared this may be my new normal.  All through this, my person wasn’t there.  He knew I was in pain. He knew because he was the one who called the paramedics for me when I went to the hospital.  But the push energy was so strong that he couldn’t be there for me in my darkest hour. I didn’t understand at the time, but now I do.  It wasn’t his fault.  It was the energy’s. I have had to release the emotions I had carried associated to his reaction and lack of support during my time of need… just as I have had to release those ones of resentment, I had towards myself and pushing him away in the first place.  It was neither of our fault’s…it was just a reaction to the energy of this connection.  I pushed. He pulled.  It really is not more complicated than that.

But the experience of the dark night…no matter how torturous it felt in the moment, was necessary.  I needed that pain for me to be spiritually reborn.  I needed to be awakened.  Because up until that point, I hadn’t been living.  I had been existing in mind. Missing out on all the wonders and magic that this lifetime holds for each of us. My awakening brought me a new sense of awareness in all that is.  It brought me to presence, where I could see value in each and every circumstance…even those that the mind wanted to judge as bad.  There is no bad or good.  There are moments that we learn that bring us joy and those that we realize we don’t like. It is through those experiences that new moments can be created that we do like.  We need to experience the “bad” for our souls to bring us more of the good.  This is how we co-create with the universe. 

It was through my dark night that my soul brought me JoAnne.  And it was divine intervention to put it mildly.  The way we connected was completely soul inspired.  We had been both searching for our purpose.  Seeking more in life for ourselves.  Both knowing we were motivated by helping others and wanting to be a light in the world for others in pain. 

My dark night brought me the best life I have ever experienced. Every day gets better and better and I fully trust that my soul knew what it was doing. “Just Before Sunrise there is a Dark Night”.  Before you can be your brightest, you must experience the darkest time.  But there is the hope of that magnificent sunrise.  It’s there.  It will always be there after that dark night.  Be willing to embrace the pain this journey brings, because once you recognize it for what it’s doing for you, you can be open to the rebirth that your Soul is gifting you with!

XOXO

Elizabeth Anne