Reframing the Dark Night of the Soul as a Rite of Passage to Reclaim your Authentic Self

Hey, Ricardo Pereira here. Today's podcast is brought to you by your revival mentor and artist from the Dark Night project on Patreon. When you sign up for the Dark Night monthly oxygen tank there on my Patreon page, you will have exclusive access to specifically designed support and strategic guidance for those going through a dark night of the soul. No one can do it for you, and we cannot do it alone as well. Now let's get down into our episode of today.

Hello, hello, hello, dearest Dark Night traveler, Dark Night alchemist. I'm coming here today to speak from my heart and being of service as much as I possibly can in this moment with my own experience of having gone through a Dark Night of of the soul that lasted almost 10 years. And basically bringing anything that I feel or believe will be of service to you right in this very moment. And I can imagine that if you are going through a dark night of the soul, if you are listening to the sound of my voice in this moment, you are probably feeling as challenged as you have possibly been so far in your life. And I really want to start by acknowledging how crippling or devastating, to use a bit of dramatic words. Yet some of the most profound and dramatic words, I actually found a meaning from, for them while going through my own dark night of the soul. And I recall that for a period that felt to me like almost infinity in a way that it did not seem that it was going to end. It literally felt like the most vivid experience for me of hell on earth. Oftentimes different people or different groups or organizations talk about hell, a hell that exists in a different dimension similarly to heaven. And for someone like you who may be going through a dark night of the soul, and perhaps that's not the way for all of you, but believe me that I get it. If you do feel in many moments that you are literally and viscerally going through hell here on Earth. So I want to acknowledge you for having unconsciously chosen that experience. And the reason why I say that is that I have many or all reasons for, so to speak, to believe that We do choose these experiences as crippling or devastating, but perhaps crippling is not the right word because crippling for me means that the person or the being is kind of being— what's the word— damaged, or that he is going to be less than after what is happening to me. And for me, the dark night of the soul could not be anything but the opposite. The dark night of the soul for me is like if you imagine being a tree or a plant, but let's imagine this picture of a tree. The dark night is what is pruning our roots, what is pruning our branches. But the branches and roots that it is pruning are the branches and roots that I would call are sick in a certain way. And the sickness, I would call it what comes from your conditioning, from our conditioning. So many of us that are going through a certain experience or rite of passage, as I would call it, as we would call it, realize that our conditioning is where most of our dysfunctional behaviors come from. And many of us go through life— I know myself that I did that for the first 25 years of my life— in full automatic or autopilot mode. And what that means is that I'm just going with whatever flow is happening. But I realized later on, even before I got into my own dark night of the soul, that that flow was not a flow— if we call it a river or a stream— was not one that was really congruent with my deepest desires. My deepest or most genuine needs that I would call coming from my heart and soul. So even before I went through my own dark night of the soul, I realized that most of my decisions, behaviors, and circumstances in life were coming from my original conditioning. And what I see is one of the reasons or one of the intentions for a dark night of the soul that we believe is an archetype or This experience that many before us have come in life and experienced it, main intentions is to help dissolve the conditioning, to help deconstruct whichever may be that is preventing us or preventing you from living from your most authentic self. And by authentic self, this is just a word. I mean what actually comes from the softest and also most powerful and truest parts of your heart and soul. So having shared what we see as one of the main purposes for a dark night of the soul, which is to create profound transformation in you. Which is to prune the old roots, the old branches, the sick ones that aren't really coming from your heart and soul. I now want to share with you what I have experienced as being some of the best thought processes or habits or strategies or lessons to actually speed up your own healing. There's a lot of people that go through a dark night of the soul and say or believe that you cannot really influence a dark night of the soul, that all you have to do is surrender. And there's actually some truth to it from our understanding. There's actually some reality that is actually based on reality and not just unlimited thinking or one-sided view. Yes, surrendering and letting go of control is actually part of it. Because control, the way that I experience or have experienced it, oftentimes is kind of like putting the foot on the brake. But actually, life is always flowing on its own. So for me, I see God, the universe, whatever I want to call it in nature or in so many natural quote and unquote dynamics in the universe like the birth of a star, the death of a star. And if we are part of that universe and you actually believe or feel, and probably at this stage you may be having a visceral experience that life is flowing through you, but in a very struggling way. And that's okay, that is also part of it, because one of the reasons that you're going through so much pain is so that you really get the message. Because someone who goes through a dark night of the soul and actually gets into it and understands its purpose, there's no way of turning back. And that's one of the reasons That's why the pain is so strong. So you get the message. And part of the message is you have been acting, you have been thinking, and you have been feeling in ways which are not congruent with your highest purpose or your life purpose or whatever we want to call it. And we are already getting clearer and clearer that part of that is because of our upbringing, because of our conditioning. So the dark night of the soul— and I'm going to repeat a few messages here because we all know that sometimes the first time we hear it, we don't really get it. So we'll make sure to communicate with as much passion and compassion. Because I get it, how painful it can be. But at the same time, I will also be bringing humor in other moments. Think about it this way. When you look at a child, you will probably easily tell that it's one of the ages for most of us as human beings that they're most connected with what we call, whatever we want to call it, our creative Force or God, Universe, whatever that is. For me, it's Curious George. I love being curious, and that's one of the ingredients that got me out of my own dark night of the soul because I kept looking at something that I could not experience back then, but I felt it sometimes, and I had felt it before. So we'll be repeating sometimes here in some of these sharings some of the ways of thinking differently so that you can actually let the dark night do its job. And transformation, and also you allow yourself to bring comfort without judgment. Because again, a lot of what gets us in trouble is thinking, judging— this is bad, that is okay, that is good— and having this rigid one-sided view about whatever it is. And even for people that go through a dark night of the soul, you get a lot of people saying, you can't do this, you have to surrender, and you have to only let go of control. Yes, let go of control and also learn how to do things differently. And for that to happen, from my experience, you have to learn how to feel differently as well. And I would probably say I have reasons to say that most feelings come from thoughts at a first place. I won't say for sure that it's 100% of all feelings, but most feelings for most of the time come from some unconscious thought. Have you ever realized that we are meaning-making machines, human beings? Isn't that what makes us unique? The meaning that we give to whatever happens in our life. Sometimes the difference between looking at something and feeling anxious or looking at the the same thing in a different moment and being moved to tears and opening our hearts. So you can actually do that now. You can actually allow yourself to step a bit more into your heart and actually acknowledge yourself for going through one of the rites rites of passage, one of the most extreme rites of passage that I was privileged to go through, even though it felt like freaking hell on earth in such a way that I lost track of time, that I felt mentally unstable, that I had to take for almost 10 years medication every single day because I was not able to even feel the boundaries in my own body. And that's what usually happens, I would say, for many of people on the Dark Night. Not that actual phenomena, but being open to our upper energy centers, if you want to call it using those terms. So part of what helps you go through a dark night, and you probably already know that, but we know that when we know something, that doesn't mean that we actually do it. Common sense is not oftentimes common practice, is grounding. And it's really important that you find different ways of grounding. And for some of you, it may be important— I'm not saying that it is, I'm not a doctor— but it may be important that you find a good psychiatrist if you believe or feel that you could benefit for some time from traditional medication. Having said that, there's a lot a lot of other ways as well. And you yourself, also together with someone that has a clearer understanding about those benefits, can have a sense or make a decision. I know for sure that for me, when I realized that I had to start taking medication It was like a shock to me because I had all of those meanings associated to medication: antidepressants, antipsychotics, anxiolytics. Not the kind of medication that you would want to take before you go to a party. Hahaha. Nope, not really. Yet for some of us It can be part of the journey. So I absolutely encourage you to get more and more out of your own judgments and other people's judgments around what you should or should not do, about what you can or cannot do. And by all means, you deserve to bring different kinds of comfort. It is absolutely devastating. It is beyond painful. Words do not describe what some of us go through on that stage. So by all means, feel free to think that you can bring comfort, that you can even bring some laughter. And even if it's temporary, as you start getting clearer about what the dark night is pruning in you— and by that I specifically mean, as you start getting as clearer as ever before what are are the behaviors that have not been serving your highest purpose or the life that you really came here to experience. As you start getting, getting clarity around what are your beliefs that led to those behaviors that aren't really serving you, the dynamics with the people around you, the quality of the relationships, the kind of professional expression that you want to bring into your life. And different reasons or circumstances can trigger a dark night of the soul. It can be something related to professional expression. It can be something related to relationships. It can be related to a particular deep frustration in your life or many other circumstances. But as you start getting clear about those behaviors, beliefs that haven't really served you, relationships, expressions, ways of being, then At the same time, you can also start learning to think differently. And there's one of the biggest potentials that I've seen on someone who's going through a dark night of the soul, because you're really at a raw level. It's like it's the one of the most extreme resets that I've witnessed in a human being. Perhaps similarly to psychedelics, which as part of what I've studied and experienced a bit, can also sometimes in certain dosages and in certain conditions when used in a very responsible, conscious, and respectful, respectful ways with guided support as well create like this reset. And the dark night is also doing that. So as you allow yourself to see it for the greatest purpose that I see that it has— because if you look at it as a disaster that happened in your life, and you keep looking at it like that, and even if you look at it in some shape of— from the point of view of being a victim from life, then you would probably be also believing at some level that your unconscious now and then has been kind of dumb. And I don't believe that. I have every reason to believe, I see it in my life more and more, I see it in other people's lives, that your unconscious always, always has at some level, at a most essential level, the intention of healing and growing. If you look at nature, you may probably realize that it is kind of most of the times or always doing one of these in its own natural form, either healing or growing or both. So if you're part of nature as well, and I wouldn't see any reason why we would see ourselves as detached from nature or the rest of the universe. We may perceive ourselves as such in different moments, and definitely a dark night of the soul brings that feeling of total disconnection. I felt it as well, and I want you to know that the more you create a powerful meaning for you, an empowering meaning for you around what is happening in you through your own dark night of the soul. The more you realize specifically, not only at an abstract level, what are the different behaviors or thinking processes, limiting beliefs that are are being pruned, that are actually being deconstructed. And the more you get in touch— and that may be done sometimes in a more powerful way or easier way, I would say, perhaps not more powerful but definitely easier way when you have someone on the outside that makes the questions that are directed to bring that information from your heart and soul, and you get as clear as possible about what really matters for you, about what you want to bring into your life, into your relationships, into your different shapes and forms of expressions, but in a way that is congruent with your heart and soul, I have every reason to believe that you will speed up, that you will give the ingredients that are important to allow the dark night to run and complete its course on you. So I want to thank you for this time in opening up now a bit more and later trusting the process, trusting that your unconscious may have most of the time or all the time at an essential level, at a deeper level, the intention of healing and growing. So as you align both the unconscious intention, the unconscious resources, with your own conscious intentions and resources, I believe you will be giving yourself an opportunity to bring not only more comfort but a lot more more of purpose in a way that allows you to really learn your lessons and make the transformations that are important for you. So again, thank you for your time, for your curiosity, your attention. Please write any comment or question you may have. Know that you're not alone. I also want you to know that there's one of the ways that you can get more support from me and other like-minded people that are going through a dark night of the soul is through the Dark Night Monthly Oxygen Tank, where I share Specific strategies, transformational processes, or mindsets exactly that will assist you, facilitate, or speed up all of these intentions that I myself experienced during my own dark night of the soul, and that I see that the dark night of the soul is wanting to bring in you. So, please check my Patreon page if you want to know more about it. I look forward to keep serving you and talk soon.

Hey, Ricardo Pereira again here reminding you that today's podcast was brought to you by your revival mentor and artist from the Dark Night project on Patreon. When you sign up for the Dark Night monthly oxygen tank there on my Patreon page, you will have exclusive access to specifically designed support and strategic guidance for those going through a dark night of the soul. With the monthly Dark Night oxygen tank, you will be able to enhance your healing, bring more comfort, and more powerfully learn your dark night lessons so that you can let the dark night run its complete course and lead you to a new chapter in your life where you feel more connected and on purpose than ever before with yourself, your dreams, and your authentic expression. We need your gifts and your talents in the world, and you do deserve yourself the opportunity to live a life more and more connected to your own purpose. You deserve to feel supported in an interactive community of other like-minded Dark Night Alchemists that are learning, just like you, how to bring more comfort, clarity, and enhance their own healing during the Dark Night while being supported and guided by those who've been there, including myself. No one can do it for you, and we cannot do it alone as well. Please head now to patreon.com/darknightmentor.

That is patreon.com/darknightmentor.

And click on the Dark Knight Oxygen Tank pledge to find out the details about how you can enhance your healing and what you'll get as part of the monthly guided support system.