A dark night of the soul is not a fun place to be. I know, I´ve been there. If you are going through one, hang in there and know that things eventually will get better. They really will, you just cannot see it yet.

After more than one dark night of the soul throughout my life, I have realized that our biggest growth always comes out of our greatest losses. Without pain, there is no real growth. As tough as this may be, is also gives me hope knowing that suffering eventually can lead to real profound growth.

In this post, I will talk about what the dark night of the soul is, what the symptoms are and how to fix it. I hope I can answer your questions about it here!

What Is The Dark Night Of The Soul?

The dark night of the soul is a state of deep despair. Everything you always believed to be true about life, has appeared to not be true at all. Everything that you considered to be important, does no longer seem important to you anymore.

Dark night of the soul is a period of profound darkness, caused by a change in how you see life and what gives it meaning. You are questioning why you are here, and what your place or purpose is in life. The world as you knew it no longer seems to exist.

A dark night of the soul is not just a challenging time that is caused by a difficult situation or event that happened, nor is it a physical disbalance. It is a period of profound despair of the soul on a spiritual level. This is different from a depression (more on the differences here).

What Are The Symptoms Of Dark Night Of The Soul?

These are the symptoms of a dark night of the soul:

• You are not able to find joy in the things you used to love
• It feels as if your light has been dimmed
• You feel sad, depressed or empty
• You no longer find meaning in the things you used to enjoy
• The world doesn´t feel like a positive place
• You have lost faith in life
• You feel powerless and lost
• You feel as if something is missing
• You are longing for something (you might not know for what)
• You don’t know what your purpose is

What Is The Purpose Of A Dark Night Of The Soul?

The purpose of a dark night of the soul is the initiation of profound change. When a person comes out of a dark night of the soul, something has profoundly changed. There has been a restored faith in life, a new outlook, and healing has taken place on a deeper spiritual level.

A dark night of the soul seems completely hopeless when you are in it, but only once you’ve come out of it, you can see what it has brought you.

A dark night of the soul is the start of a new beginning in life. It will (eventually) provide you with great wisdom and true freedom in your life. It can also mark the beginning of an ego death.

What Triggers A Dark Night Of The Soul?

A dark night of the soul is triggered by some form of suffering. This can come in many forms for different people, but generally there is a particular event or circumstance that initiates the suffering that starts a dark night of the soul.

This is often an event or a loss that makes us feel powerless. Only after the dark night we come to realize that we are not powerless at all, and that our suffering comes from within. This is the spiritual awakening or restored faith in life that only a dark night of the soul can trigger.

How Many Dark Nights Of The Soul Can You Have?

A person can go through several dark nights of the soul in a lifetime. Because life and nature are cyclical, so is growth (i.e. the good and challenging times). It is possible that the lessons to be learned come to you in stages. Therefore, you can go through multiple dark nights of the soul throughout your lifetime.

How To Fix The Dark Night Of The Soul?

If a dark night of the soul last for more than several months, it is a good idea to actively work with it. These are some things you can do:

• Take up a spiritual practice. Take up meditation, and create some self-care rituals for yourself.
• Spend time alone. Because happiness always comes from within, you need work on your inner world first.
• Spend time in nature. Go to the forest, mountains or any place you can feel immersed in nature.
• Start doing shadow work. Use a shadow work journal to reflect on important questions to heal yourself, or read the book about shadow work suggested at the bottom of this post.
• Exercise or walk. Make sure your body has a way to release built up stress from the body.
• Ground Yourself. Do some grounding activities to get back into your body.
• Do Reiki or book a Reiki treatment. This will help relax your nervous system and clear the body from energy blocks.

“Happiness can be found in even the darkest of times. If only one remembers to turn on the light.”

Dumbledore

What Are The Stages Of The Dark Night Of The Soul?

These are the stages you go through during a dark night of the soul:

1. The Awakening – You realize that what you always knew to be true about life, is not true at all. Something triggered you to feel as if the earth has fallen from underneath your feet.
2. The Darkness – You cannot see things in a positive way and are not able to find real joy in anything. You feel as if you are searching for something that is missing.
3. The Cleansing – You get to a point where you feel ready to do away with everything in your life that no longer serves you (these can be things, habits, work, relationships a.o.)
4. The Rebirth – You are now ready to rebuild your life in a different and more meaningful way. How can you turn your own pain and suffering into lessons? And how can you help others with what you have learned?

The Dark Night Of The Soul And Spiritual Awakening

Because the dark night of the soul is a profound growth on a spiritual level, it is sometimes followed by a spiritual awakening. Because the dark times can cause you to look at things from a new perspective, a sudden spiritual awakening can just happen to you when you least expect it.

Read more about the stages of spiritual awakening here: What is the purpose of spiritual awakening?, or read My personal spiritual awakening story.

Want To Know More?

If you like to read more about the topic, check out the book The Dark Night of the Soul by Fiona Robertson.

She shares her personal experience through the stages and provides you with some ways to get through them.

Even though the answer can only be found within yourself, I found that it surely helps to read about other people’s experiences too! 🙂

If you are ready to dive into some shadow work, get a Shadow Work Journal (or create your own), or get the book Meeting The Shadow.

The book consists of short chapters by many different great authors (such as Carl Jung, Robert Bly) about the shadow that we all have as humans.

It really makes you understand yourself, life and the human condition on a deeper level. Because of the short chapters, it is easy to digest and fun to read too.

This post was about the Dark Night of the Soul, the symptoms and how to fix it.