Extricating yourself from the dark night of the soul

By Frosty Wooldridge

In today’s world, you face enormous challenges of time, work, family and friends. You face many toils along with trials that rise up in front of you like a blazing attack of dragons.

While you endured cliques, politics and different kinds of instability during your high school years, nothing prepared you for “life” in the adult world.

While high school and/or college provided you with intellectual tools and expertise for a job in the real world—your education failed to provide you with spiritual and emotional tools to deal with living in a community. Everybody must make a living. Every society expects citizens to contribute to the good of the neighborhood.

Along the way, you discovered cold, hard bosses that cared little for your feelings. “Buck up or suck it up,” they warned.
You found yourself embroiled with co-workers who played irritating games. They didn’t like you because you showed a happy face. They envied your good looks or hated you for your fashion sense. You endured friends who undermined you. In a nutshell, you discovered an emotional and physical “boot camp” as the tour de force in your twenties. As you know, in the military, they make boot camp as difficult as possible to prepare you for battle.

You cried out, “Yes, but I am trying to live my life in peace and happiness. I didn’t sign up for combat.”

In time, life beats many people down physically, mentally and spiritually. Big cities promote a kind of emotional stress heretofore unknown in the natural world. That tension plays out in numerous ways on our bodies and minds. Notice endless sales of painkillers, Prozac, Ritalin and dozens of other chemical solutions to our growing ailments.

Millions of people come to the “Dark night of the soul” when life piles up on them. If that occurs to you or someone you know, take heart. You might follow these five steps to bring light to the darkness.

• Let go of the “why” of your circumstances. You might ask, “Why is this (whatever it may be) happening to me?” That sets up “victimization” in your mind. You can’t go ten rounds with the problem. You can either wallow like a pig in the mud or you can accept your situation—and make plans to step out of the mud.

• Like a buffalo in the spring, you may shed your shaggy hair that warmed you in the winter, but now, it causes great discomfort. You may choose to step out of your old ways. While your childhood ways once provided safety, shed them and move into the “new” you with a new fresh coat of skin. Lean into life, turn frustration into fascination, if you fall, choose to fall forward.

• Look for unexpected opportunities. During your walk, gallop or charge through life, depending on your personality—you may choose to slay a few dragons or go back to your cave to contemplate your options. Please realize that your greatest challenges allow you your greatest triumphs. Being fired from a job allows you an opening opportunity for a new vocation or even, you create work that fulfills you.

• If you camp in the wilde
ess around the campfire, you sport a miner’s lamp that lights the food in front of you or lights the path down to the lake. Lighten your life with “lighter” moments of a happy movie, a comedy show or participating in an event that brings you joy.

• Finally, surround yourself with loved ones. If you lack a community, seek it in a “meet-up” or any of hundreds of clubs.

When you face the “Dark night of the soul”, it seems thicker than you can penetrate. It feels like it owns your spirit and dominates your mind. It drags your body into the muck. By employing the aforementioned points, you will move through that dark hour. You will move into the light, the joy and the fellowship of life. Choose to make your life a blessing to you and all who surround you with love.

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