the dark night of our ego identity

The dark night of the soul, a term coined by 16th Century Spanish catholic monk and mystic, St John of the Cross, is a descent into a dark internal chaos where you are confronted by things about yourself you have not seen or experienced before. By exposing the corruption of the monastic institutions of his era, St John was locked up in a dark confined space, released only for public humiliation and abuse on a daily basis by his brotherhood, until he was finally able to escape. His profound spiritual work during this time laid down a framework of how to transmute the raw emotions of human distress when faced with unjust circumstances, such as hatred, anger and vengeance. It was essentially a purging of these parts of himself, using the power of his spiritual faith and prayer, and no doubt influenced by the modelling of forgiveness by Jesus Christ himself, with his declaration on the cross to 'Forgive them for they know not what they do', that helped St John transmute the darkest parts of his human nature into a force of light and unconditional love.

Like many mystics found in most religious institutions across time, St John crossed the veil from religious dogma and doctrine into universal cosmic territory, mapping out a soul transformational healing process for the collective human journey in his dark night framework. His dark night process is a soul-driven (or God/Life-driven) journey of releasing the unhealthy parts of our ego identity, caused by cultural conditioning and trauma that no longer serve our life path. Hence my re-coining of St John's 'dark night of the soul' to the 'dark night of our ego identity'.

The dark night can happen randomly or be triggered by an event or a sequence of events. As you start the descent down, you will reach for every distraction-strategy in your playbook; from addictive tendencies to victim narratives of blame and entitlement. With our love of control, as humans, uncertainty is not something we relish. At such times we will do anything to maintain the status quo and are easily unconsciously drawn into our survival  patterns that help manage the chaos, confusion and unpredictability in our lives. A dark night process is initially one of the pain of loss, and as a 'beyond the mind, mystical and mysterious' process, we sometimes won't even know what we are losing in the early stages, yet we will still feel the acute pain of grief with every cell in our body.

If you sense you are currently in this incredibly brutal and annihilating, yet ultimately transformational process.....

Welcome to the death of certain parts of your ego identity that have made you who you are, to date, but are no longer fit for our greater Life purpose. You are currently in a life review and the process of becoming, my Darling, so please trust this process.  

I once heard a wise soul say regarding a 'dark night' process, 'when in hell, go to hell'. Surrendering to the process is the first step. Don't fight it. Its real, its happening. Our job is to hold tight and anchor ourselves to what is healthy in our lives,  ideally recruiting experienced and wise human support to help make sense of the internal confusion, and help us to stay aware of unhealthy distractions that block or numb ourselves from this process of healing. We are being called to learn to TRUST our life and our intuitive/divine guidance system which will feed us breadcrumbs of information. This guidance may not make much sense in the actual moment but will start to paint a greater picture overtime as to what we are letting go of and where we are heading. This is a transformative healing process that is rewiring us in a new direction that we do not have the eyes to see yet. Put simply, in the face of such internal disturbance, we have two choices: to either flow with the organic process, embracing the initially painful learnings it has to offer you, or push against it and inevitably stay stuck in varying degrees of repetitive pain. 

If you are crying everyday and not sure why, welcome to the dark night. If it feels like life is against you at every level, welcome to the dark night. If you keep losing things of value to you and you think it can't get worse but it inevitably does, welcome to the dark night. You are now being forced to be totally reliant on your spiritual and intuitive guidance that will lead you step by step through this healing process. And that includes respecting the pain of loss. If you think you can cry no more, think again. You are releasing, my Love, you are letting go. You are transitioning, you are becoming what you were always meant to become but you have to let go first. And there is no set roadmap for the journey, requiring you to build the muscles of endurance, surrender, trust and self-connection through it all. If this is not the most rigorous of character development programs I have ever come across, I really don't know what is. Hence, I salute you if you are currently in such a phase of life. 

This is why I have been sharing information (see below) on our intuitive guidance system, which may include, for  some, your spiritual senses. As a moment-to-moment truth teller, our intuitive guidance system, feeds us information in random and piecemeal ways, as this process requires us to move from our old frame of reference to a new one. This 'beyond the mind' process does not come with an instruction manual, yet we are essentially required to navigate the enormity of both a death and rebirth process simultaneously. This means we are feeling and sensing our way in the dark towards something NEW that our piecemeal intuitive guidance is helping us to build,  piece by piece. 

Our intuitive guidance system helps us to navigate this process in a world that may be shouting at us to keep everyone happy and maintain the status quo. In order to go though a dark night process effectively we require: 

a) a connection with our intrinsic esteem (see below link for more info) to hold strong through this personal growth process that many around us will not understand 
b) trust in the guidance we are being given even if it doesn't make sense at times (and if you are experiencing grief, THAT is the guidance. We need to SUPPORT ourselves to go through it and it will take as long as it takes)
c) know how to accurately perceive and read the guidance that is assisting us to grow and evolve. This means building our ability to DISCERN the 'old' perceptual frameworks, that are currently dieing (and might I add has been distorting our ability to SEE clearly), as well as perceive the glimmers of the 'new' which will be shaping your future life direction. 

Here's some very important anchoring messages that may support your Dark Night chaos, confusion and pain, if you are in the thick of it right now:

• Your psyche will be, at times, totally overwhelmed because it is rebooting itself at the deepest level - expect exhaustion and don't fight it. 
• Are you willing to sit in a place of nothingness and emptiness for a while so you can let the NEW emerge? 
• Can you let yourself be a nobody for a period of time to become a somebody again?
• A sign that this is a crisis of the soul, rather a crisis of the mind, is that you will find it challenging to heal through mainstream tools, frameworks or interventions
• The dark night process is essentially a truth-telling exercise, whereby the identity you have unconsciously created as a child for your survival, belonging and esteem, can no longer compute with the truth of who you are becoming
• Support from an experienced confidente to help you to heal and integrate what is arising is highly recommended to keep the growth process moving forward

• Using your Tracker (see below links for more info), lets curiously map out and record your dark night evolutionary process - from the brutal grief of the dismantling and disorientation of the earlier stages to the rebuilding of your new life and emergent self 
• Also map out and record how intuitive/divine guidance communicates with you via your multi-sensory system (see below links for more information). You are learning a new language here. When you can match intuitive hunches (however they are uniquely expressed through you) with outcomes of growth/potential/evolution then you can begin to gain confidence in the language of your own unique body-based intuitive system, from gut instinct right through to spiritual, energetic, soul or psychic guidance (however you choose to define it).

With this information at hand, may we allow ourselves to turn towards the 'dark night' process by holding hope that if others can survive it, we can too. Thankfully we are at a point in Western history where we are more receptive to this type of information to support our evolution as human beings, instead of staying stuck in the trappings of mainstream pathological models deeming us to have long-term mental and physical health conditions that need to be medicated away. This may be helpful for some people but is not a long-term solution for a crisis of the soul/identity/your life journey. We are instead being called to grow and evolve. We are no longer allowed to continue on the path we were on and this is the re-route for our life. 

If you sense you are in a dark night process right now and resonate with the information I am sharing, keep following my posts, website and YouTube channel. I will be supporting you to identify and release any outdated and unhealthy patterns of your ego identity so you can become the clear vessel required to accurately interpret and detect the emerging 'new' through your intuitive guidance system, both body-based and potentially spiritually guided.

Please keep in mind this is a inter-faith based dialogue, holding a container of love for all spiritual and philosophical creeds, for no spiritual or philosophical path is exempt from a 'dark night'. It is a universally experienced phenomena undertaken by souls strong enough to sustain this incredible evolutionary journey that holds human healing and beyond at its core. 

Lots of love to you, and with much gratitude to the courageous and wise soul who was St John of the Cross, 

Kira X

Your Intuitive Guidance System: The Ultimate TruthTeller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry9y9x8X0o4
Your Intrinsic Esteem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQZW-vadzc4
Information on the Tracker:  https://www.counsellingtauranga.co.nz/blog/the-intuitively-perceptive-multi-sensory-body
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@kirafollas2991
FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61559357951966
Website: www.counsellingtauranga.co.nz
Email: [email protected]

​Below is a beautiful piece of art that helped carry me through my recent 'dark night' by a very special friend, Emma Prill ​https://www.emmaprill.co.nz/