The dark night of the soul is the most important and perhaps most painful stage of a spiritual awakening.

It is not possible to have a spiritual awakening without going through the dark night of the soul as it is precisely this passage that initiates a process of radical transformation.

The Spiritual Awakening and the dark night of the Soul, however, are only part of a much more complex process that is often considered completely separate. But in reality, the various stages of our spiritual growth are interconnected and indispensable.

SPIRITUAL AWAKENING: the soul awakens

Until we have a spiritual awakening, our life and how we perceive ourselves are based on illusions and beliefs imposed by others, meaningless materialistic expectations.

We stumble in the dark without knowing what we are doing, and suddenly the light turns on, a small light that slowly begins to illuminate everything we couldn’t see and understand before.

The soul awakens and is finally ready to claim its place: it is precisely at this point that the dark night of the soul begins, a delicate and fundamental moment through which the previous version of ourselves dies to make way for a new form.

And if the night is dark of the soul symbolically means death, the ascension to a higher dimension such as the fifth dimension, actually signifies rebirth: it is the moment when we define who we are and what we believe in, we explore and give a new meaning to our life.

The last stage is effectively the integration of everything we have learned and selected during the ascent, which represents, in essence, the new version of ourselves.

Usually, we refer to a spiritual awakening as a single event in our life or in someone’s life, and it is mostly identified with the moment when we are ready to leave the third dimension. But the reality is that throughout our life, we have multiple spiritual awakenings. They are constant and continuous cycles of destruction and reconstruction of our identity. It is a journey that never stops and continues until we are ready to leave this human experience and move on to the next.

The symptoms of the DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

The symptoms of the dark night of the soul go hand in hand with our openness to a new way of seeing things. Often, during this phase, our Ego is still very present and creates a lot of resistance which causes friction with our desire to leave behind the version of ourselves that no longer resonates.

We literally experience an internal battle between our ego and our spirit, which leads to significant symptoms such as fear, the fear of the unknown of what will be, of what we still do not know; anxiety, the anxiety of not knowing what choices the new version of ourselves will make, and moments of heavy depression. These moments of depression are very deep and reflect exactly what is happening within us, the death of who we were. That is why during this phase of depression, dark thoughts and thoughts of death or momentary obsession with death are very often present and integral to this symptom.

The 5 Stages of the Dark Night of the Soul

The dark night of the soul manifests in five stages that do not necessarily have well-defined boundaries but overlap and merge continuously.

1. The first phase is the phase of dissociation, where we literally dissociate ourselves from our previous version and distance ourselves from everything that no longer resonates with us.
   
2. The second phase of the dark night of the soul is the phase of self-discovery, of exploring and searching for new values. This is also the phase where we need to spend more time alone and isolate ourselves in order to engage in introspection and understand our new personal truth; once understood, we begin to put it into practice to lay the foundation of our new identity.
   
3. The third phase is the phase of healing, where we dedicate ourselves to healing all our traumas and everything that has hurt us. This phase is essential to feel whole again and put all the pieces of ourselves back together.
   
4. The fourth phase of the dark night of the soul is concerned with discovering our role in the world; before a spiritual awakening, the purpose of our life is purely individual and materialistic, but after a spiritual awakening, the purpose of our existence takes on a more expansive form that reflects our spirit. It is not about what we decide to do in life, but about the way we do it, that is, the level of awareness we are able to sustain in our actions and values.
   
5. The fifth and final phase of this process is attempting to integrate this new type of awareness into our daily lives to understand if we are truly able to sustain it or not. If we encounter resistance in this phase, it is because our experiments are bringing to light traumas that we have not yet overcome or fears that we still need to work on.

Signs that the dark night of the soul is over

As mentioned earlier, the symptoms of the dark night of the soul are very heavy and uncomfortable, so it is completely normal to want it to end as soon as possible. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts and there are no ways to shorten it, but at some point, we are actually able to understand that the dark night of the soul has finally ended.

1. The first sign that we have overcome the dark night of the soul is that we are finally able to focus on our lives. We feel energized by everything we have learned during this process and we are able to make decisions honoring our soul’s sovereignty; we no longer seek approval from others, we no longer have dark thoughts, but we have a sense of trust and hope for the future. Unknowingly, we have become a model of integrity for other people.
   
2. The second sign that indicates we have finally completed the dark night of the soul is that we have a newfound sense of calmness even in the most tangled situations; we are aware and have faith that every situation is an opportunity to grow and everything will be resolved as it should be without forcing the situation. We accept uncertainty and changes because we know that they will lead us to a new understanding of ourselves and a transformation of the status quo that no longer serves us.
   
3. The third sign that indicates we have passed through the dark night of the soul is that we have a deep relationship with ourselves that stems from unconditional love, which also allows us to have a deeper connection with humanity in general. We are able to choose more appropriate connections that are meant for us and we honor them with respect, love, and understanding. At this point, we also have the courage to let go of all relationships that weigh us down and do not allow us to express ourselves.

The dark night of the soul forces us to confront ourselves, to look at our shadows and face everything we have been hiding, everything we have been running away from for years. It’s a wake-up call that we must eventually answer if we want to grow and live a life that truly makes sense.

What we possess is just a collection of materials that one day will be of no use to anyone; those titles in front of our name are just pieces of paper without meaning; those numbers in our bank account are volatile. The only things that have the power to give importance to our lives are our essence and how we conduct our existence.