The Dark Night of the Soul

Join Natalie as she provides insight on the turbulent energy of eclipse season, and dives deep into the spiritual activation of the Dark Night of the Soul. 

In this episode, I share my recent experience of past triggers re-emerging, dredged up by the raging waters of the recent Scorpio eclipse, and how a spiritual meme I came across recently inspired me to this week explore the shadow side of the chrysalis experience, the dissolution of self, otherwise known as the Dark Night of the Soul. 

In this exploration, I share my own experience of what it is to journey through the dark night, the feelings involved and the kind of life events that can trigger this spiritual transformation, while reflecting on the unique beauty of the process. 

Enjoy the show :)

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Learn more about the Butterfly and it's chrysalis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPVYPjOSWSQ

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Transcript

0:00     [Music]

This is the Initiates podcast.

Here we create space to explore the path of initiation as we reawaken the forgotten wisdom that resides within us all.

I am your host and guide Natalie. Join me every Thursday for an enlightening exploration of contemporary spirituality.

It's my honor to journey with you.

0:55     [Natalie Grace]

Welcome to the Initiates Podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm back after a little sabbatical. I'm not gonna lie, the recent energies have been pretty challenging, pretty trying. If you've happened to watch one of my recent live streams, or have been keeping up with my weekly tarot energy for the collective forecasts on Instagram, you might have heard me talk about the challenging energies, the turbulent energies of this time, this eclipse season, this Scorpio season.

They've had a pretty big impact on me personally, that really required me to take a break last week to honor my own emotions. So I'll be sharing a little bit about how I've been dealing with this energy, with this emotional turbulence in my life and the way it has reminded me of a really important part of the spiritual journey.

And it happens to be a really natural continuation from the last episode about Chrysalis, the journey of metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the butterfly. It's about the dissolution of self that comes with the dark night of the soul because in many ways in the past week or two, I have been feeling familiar vibrations. Vibrations that I felt last when I was in the depths of a dark night, and it's been a very interesting time to observe those feelings, those frequencies from a vastly different emotional state. To be placed back into an old timeline and have patterns reemerge that I thought I'd worked through.

And I did attempt to record an episode last week, but the energy just was not aligned at all. And even though it's my goal to be able to release these episodes weekly, I don't think it's worth it when the energy's not aligned. It's just, it doesn't work for me. It's not worth putting out the episode just for the sake of it. And I realized why nothing was flowing last week, and it was because this was a subject that I really needed to speak about next, sharing my own perceptions of what it is to experience a dark night of the soul, the purpose of that experience in the journey of a spiritual awakening and the lessons that it gives us, and how, interestingly, the energies of the future conspire to challenge us to integrate those lessons of our past dark night or dark nights. So I'm actually quite excited to talk about this today because it has been a really fascinating experience, although it's been very emotionally testing and emotionally draining.

It's also been really useful in understanding what not only I'm here to learn and to experience, but what I'm here to integrate and put into practice. So with all that said, let's journey.

4:48     [Natalie Grace]

So let's talk about the energy. I've probably been feeling a bit unmoored for maybe two weeks now, so I feel like it. It's definitely an alignment with the Eclipse season and the most recent partial solar eclipse in Scorpio. And just Scorpio season in generally. I've been quite attuned with the energy of Scorpio this year, having been fairly excited for the nodal shift with the north node in Taurus and the south node in Scorpio.

If you're unfamiliar with what that means, the nodes are about the moon, they're lunar nodes. They’re the points in the moon's orbit where the moon crosses the ecliptic or the path of the sun. If that sounds like another language to you, that's totally okay. All you need to know is that the notes speak to your lessons and destiny in this life.

So the north node shows you where you are destined to head and what lessons you're here to learn in this in future lives. The South Node shows the lessons you've learned in your previous life and what experience you are bringing into your current incarnation. And so we see these lunar nodes appear in our individual natal charts, but they also happen at a collective level as well. And the node shift positions around every 18 months. And so earlier this year, the collective nodes shifted into Taurus and Scorpio, and I've really enjoyed working with this energy. 

On the one hand, the north node in Taurus has prompted some really important collective lessons about our relationship with Gaia, how we provide for ourselves and how we define our values. As society, as communities. And that's also impacted us to think about that too on our own individual level. And it's been an opportunity to check in with ourselves to see whether our values are in alignment and to redefine our values, whether at a collective level, and then also influencing us individually as well to do that, to perhaps redesign our value systems so that they feel more in alignment with our own inner truth. 

And from the south node perspective, I once heard an astrologer describe the south node in Scorpio as working kind of like a drainpipe that sucks away , all the crap, basically all the karmic gunk, all emotional baggage that we're holding onto that needs to leave. It's kind of. A helping hand in that respect, in the process of shedding what we no longer need to carry. And if we're aware of this energy, we can co-create how that shedding happens. But if we're oblivious or even worse, we're not wanting to work with the energy of release, of letting go of shedding, it can be forced onto us. So if we're in denial of this energy or ignorance, it can be a really challenging time.

It's going to be a challenging time anyway, because as we're going to hear more about today, thinking back to the previous episode about the journey of the Caterpillar. is a painful experience to she layers of self, but it's made so much more difficult when we are ignorant to what's happening or when we're in denial.

So I've been doing my very best to work with this kind of drainpipe energy to help facilitate the letting go, the release of energies. Emotional baggage of patterns of behavior, of old hopes and dreams. Anything that I've been carrying that no longer aligns with me or is weighing me down or is just not no longer of use, I've been doing my best to allow it to go.

However, I feel like the recent Scorpio energy has just been this supercharge of activation of this drainpipe, almost to the point where it's become, it's felt for me, this crazy black hole. And like I've been on the edge of the event horizon, like. The power of this energy has been so palpable to the point where it's actually felt like I have been transported to a past timeline.

It's been such an odd time and such an odd experience because, It almost like it's that idea of that event horizon that's a portal. The black hole's a portal, it, the energy of the black hole has the potential to transport you to a different space time, basically. And that's kind of what it's felt like. Except I haven't gone back in time, but my past timeline has reappeared here. Like it's come through a portal just to visit me and allow me to observe it. And what it's done is brought the old energy back, the old vibrations, the old frequency for me to feel and really check in whether I've evolved past.

It's been very challenging because the vibrations that it has brought forward into this current timeframe for me have felt very similar to really negative patterns I had been experiencing in my life a few years earlier, and this was a time when I was in a very low. I was suffering some really intense physical symptoms that I hadn't yet been diagnosed with. So I had no idea what was happening in my body, and that had taken such a toll on my emotional and mental health that I was in a really poor state. 

And just dealing with day-to-day life was really difficult. It was also an incredibly challenging period. I'd just moved To a new environment, quite isolated from my family and friends.

I'd moved from my home in the city (and I'd always been a city girl) to a farm, completely out of my depth with amazing aspirations of what to do with the land. But very little experience and knowledge and. A body that wasn't really capable of all the work that was required at that time. It was also the emergence of the pandemic at that time. So a really intense vibration of fear and uncertainty in the collective that was pretty much impossible to avoid the beginning of the. 

Despite all that, I didn't hold fear around the pandemic. I think because of where I was located, I was afforded a lot more peace and space, and I think my intuitiveness allowed me to see past that immediate uncertainty that everything was going to be okay and that it wasn't going to be as serious as what the media was making out. So I'm super grateful for my clarity and peace of mind in regards to the pandemic at that time, but I was still going through it and dealing with a lot of chaotic energy around me.

And so I think we can all relate to that time anyway based on what was happening in the world as being really challenging and really difficult emotionally and mentally. But I was dealing with a lot, a lot of things culminated for me at that time. That spun me into a very dark place. And I've since then done a lot of work, physical work, shadow work, ritual.

Lots of building of awareness, self awareness, mental awareness, so much work to elevate myself out of that space, to raise my own energy [to redesign myself, my identity, and my life. That it's kind of been a shock to the system to have these old feelings, these old triggers, these old vibrations, reemerged where I'm at. 

But I think it's really important and it's, it's led me to really analyze, think about deeply the job, the role of these dark challenging times and the lessons we learn in them, and those times when in the deepest, darker steps when we go through the biggest transformation, described as the dark night of the soul, and it's just so interesting. If you are familiar with what that feels like, you can identify a time or times in your life when you have gone through a dark night. I'm sure you can relate to what I'm saying, that it's a shock to be reminded at a visceral level of those feelings to have the world, your world, your universe manifest triggers to elicit a response based on wounds that you felt like you've already worked on be reopened. 

It's really intense stuff and it's even more interesting to think about the fact that we don't need to go through dark night after dark night after dark night, to be given the opportunity to remind ourselves of why we've chosen to navigate a path out of those places and to provide us with a challenge to truly integrate and live those lessons that we have taken away from experiencing dark nights of the soul.

So this has been quite an introspective time and a time of really important deep lessons, being able to observe what happens. When triggers reappear, triggers from the past that you thought you'd left behind, when all of a sudden they reappear to test you, how do you react to those triggers? Are you reacting from a more evolved version of self? Or are you reacting using your old behavior, your old way of being that you've worked so hard to move through? 

I can tell you now, I've been experiencing these triggers that have shocked me and I've been reacting in the old way. So it's taken a lot of intentional awareness to kind of think about why that is and how that's happening and for the work I need to do because even though this is an incredibly challenging time, emotionally, it's an incredibly valuable opportunity to evolve and come into closer alignment with my true self. 

I would just love to hear how this energy has been impacting you guys, if you are experiencing similar events or triggers that you recognize from your past that are popping up as patterns again, and this, this time has really felt, I've said turbulent before, but if you can imagine extremely turbulent waters, that's what it's felt like.

On a day very close to the eclipse. I can't remember which exact day it was, but I went on a walk to a, usually very tame, very peaceful waterfall. You can hardly call it a fall. It's more like a little ledge with a trickle and. Where I live in Victoria, Australia, we've been experiencing so much turbulent water. There has been really intense rain events, flooding, and it's been this cumulative flooding. It's been building, water levels, building torrents, building over in a gradual way over the past few weeks. And it hasn't really appeased yet. It went from this like, gush of water to this kind of dredging.

So what I saw when I went to see this normally trickling waterfall was this raging current, this absolutely raging current. This river had broken its banks, the water, the way the water was moving was violent. And that's kind of, I, I was watching it in awe because it really was an earthly manifestation of the celestial energy of this time. And it's not surprising, I guess, as above, so below, right?

But the effect of the water. Terrifying. It was moving so quickly, it was creating a foam. The silt was getting dredged up. So if you feel like you are being put through a washing machine, if you feel like old stuff is being dredged up and it's really dirty and it's painful, we can see this happening in nature being reflected back to us right now in so many parts of the world, the weather not being quite right. Yesterday, the rain evolved to hail storms, hard, icy hail. 

So it's a process. The water is transforming. We are transforming, our emotional selves are transforming, and my advice to you is to have an awareness of that and do your very best to go with that flow, not to fight it or resist it, because it's going to be a much bigger struggle.

It's going to be much more painful and difficult. You will survive it. It's just going to take time to pass and restore. A more harmonious energy.

21:05     [Natalie Grace]

In the previous episode, I delivered a channeled message from the Akashic Records all about the emotional journey of the caterpillar transforming into the butterfly. And it took us into the body of the caterpillar, into the spirit of the caterpillar, and it was very clear that the higher guidance wanted us to really feel into the anticipation of change, into the fear of the unknown. And then into the deeply embodied feeling of the emergence of the butterfly after being brave enough to surrender to the inevitable transformation taking place. And it was a really beautiful message. I received quite a lot of feedback about how beautiful and how helpful that message was.

It was quite a different message than I'm used to receiving and relaying. But I was really glad to be able to share that because I had a sense of the times that we are in and how lots of people are feeling fear around transformation, whether that's their own personal transformation, their spiritual evolution, whether it is the transformation happening around them, because collectively there's a really huge transformation taking place.

But after delivering that message, I was kind of lost about what to speak about next. And as I mentioned before, I needed to take a little break just to go inward, and I came across a meme just randomly on Instagram posted by someone who I think is just wonderful. I won't name them here. It made me think and it made me realize why I hadn't been able to feel into the next topic to discuss. I'm just grabbing my phone so I can read out this message. 

And so the meme says, 

“People talk about caterpillars becoming butterflies as though they just go into a cocoon, slap on wings and are good to go. Caterpillars have to dissolve into a disgusting pile of goo to become butterflies. So if you are a mess wrapped up in blankets right now, keep going.”

And this one hit me because even though I understood very deeply the intention of that last message, that so often when there's obvious transformation occurring, we get terrified of what it's going to feel like to transform that. The message in the recent episode was to get us thinking about embracing the feelings that the emotional journey leading up to that alchemical transformation because it's really the most important part.

But at the same time, it's really clear that it would also be a little bit irresponsible of me not to address the disgusting pile of goo, and that is the dissolution of self. That is what happens when we transform. We leave the old self behind in order to transform into the new self. And that process of disintegration, of decay, of destruction.

In order to clear the space for the new is just as important as that emotional journey. It's all one and the same. And so that's what I wanna talk about because it really made me think like, what is it to break down into that disgusting pile of goo? And if you're not familiar with what that is referring to, do have a listen to the previous episode, if you haven't already. The part of that process. 

So we talked about the conscious emotional journey of the caterpillar, realizing what it's about to take place and becoming very afraid, but then understanding at a very deep, instinctive level, the need to surrender, and what happens after that surrender takes place for the caterpillar. Their body breaks down. They literally do turn into a pile of goo in order for their self to be restructured physically into a new form. It's incredibly symbolic. And in that last episode, I did talk about some of the symbolic meanings of the butterfly. And that's where that depth of symbolic meaning comes from, that literal physical transformation, that complete and utter metamorphosis that requires such a breaking down of self, that the physical form becomes a goo. 

And so when I reflect on that and think about, well, what's the human equivalent of that? Our physical forms don't change shape like that. It really led me to the dark night of the soul. I felt like that is the closest way humans come to a complete and other utter breakdown of self. That results in metamorphosis, that results in transformation.

And it led me to reflect on my own journey, which it's not a coincidence, the timing of all this happening, as I just discussed in the intro, having all these old patterns pop up from times that I identify from my past as being pivotal are dark nights. And so I wanna share some of my insights, my personal insights around the dark night of the soul, that process, that experience. I'm sure this is something I'll touch on in future episodes, perhaps from a more psychological perspective, from the perspective of myth. References within society, within culture. But for now, this is more of a personal reflection because I feel like it's a good time to share given the collective transformation vibes that surround us right now.

So those of you who know that you've experienced a dark night of the soul will deeply understand what I'm talking about. In the case that you haven't, The Dark Night of the soul is a term that is commonly used to describe a period of deep and intense spiritual transformation. It refers to the transitioning of a person from a state of darkness, say what we describe as being asleep or unaware into a much more awakened state where they're embracing their true, authentic self. The dark night of the soul is a difficult and significant transition to a deeper perception of existence. It's a portal of initiation that through the experience of deep pain and suffering, allows a person to emerge, transformed with a heightened level of consciousness. The process can feel disorienting, confining, and truly devastating to our sense of self.

I read a great explanation of this, that the dark night of the soul is an intervention orchestrated by the soul to signal that it's time to meet our deepest inner selves. And it's something that occurs when we've drifted too far away from our authenticity and when we stray too far from basically our path of destiny, our sole mission, what we are here to do.

It's our soul's way of bringing us back into alignment. 

So some of the ways we can describe the dark night of the soul is that it's a crisis of self, that can be an identity crisis. It's almost always an identity crisis. It can be an existential crisis. I'm sure a lot of people experienced this throughout the pandemic. It can also be a crisis of faith when what we have had faith in is shattered in some way. 

It can be described as an ego death, signalling the death of your old self, of your previous identity, the death of your old values. With death comes rebirth, and once you transition through this portal, you no longer identify as your old self.

It can be described as a mental or emotional breakdown. I know that feels aligned with my experience. It can be described as and is definitely a catalyst for spiritual awakening.

And it is an initiation, a spiritual initiation. It's a portal of transformation, a potent catalyst for transition that takes you from your old version of self to a more awakened new version of self.

So just to expand on that death and rebirth aspect, Eckhart Tolle had some really good insight into this. He said that the dark night of the soul is a kind of death that you die. What dies is the egoic sense of self. Of course, death is always painful, but nothing real has actually died here, only an illusionary identity. Now it's probably that some people who've gone through this transformation realize that they had to go through it in order to bring about a spiritual awakening. Often it's a part of the awakening process, the death of the old self and the birth of the true self. 

So that really aligns, reflecting on my own experience. That birth of the true self.

I can pinpoint when that happened in my own journey, and I would say that I've had more than one dark night of the soul in my life, but only one that really facilitated a rebirth of my true self, which has led me to an ongoing emergence, an ongoing unveiling of my true self at deeper and deeper levels.

So let's talk about the kind of things that can happen in your life that could trigger a dark night of the soul. Most often, it's events that can cause a questioning of your reality and the meaning of life. These can be big earth shattering, life changing events, like the death of someone close to you, like being diagnosed with a disease or an illness or suffering from an illness. It could be the end of a really important relationship, a partnership, a divorce, even a friendship. It can be triggered by a job loss that causes you a career crisis or breakdown. It can be triggered by an accident or another type of traumatic event. It can be triggered by disaster. 

So all of those are really, trajectory changing events. And even if they don't lead to a dark night of the soul, this spiritual awakening, this spiritual crisis have the potential to change your life in a drastic way, but you can also be led to the experience of the Dark Night of the Soul with less traumatic events in your life, I believe. 

I think that a state of depression that might not have any real known cause can lead you to the void, the void of the inner self. We can experience mental or emotional breaks, so these can be psychotic episodes that leave you questioning your reality and completely change your perception of what's real and what has meaning in your life. 

It can also be related to age. So in our society there's a phenomenon called the midlife crisis, where people reach a certain age, kind of, you know, if we're looking at an average lifespan, that linear timeline of that average lifespan to hit age 40 or 50 sometimes earlier, and have a complete breakdown around the meaning of your life. So it doesn't necessarily have to be some huge traumatic event. It can be triggered in lots of different ways. But what's common and what allows you to identify the experience as a dark night of the soul is that it leads to that spiritual awakening. 

I know in my own experience, I really feel like I've probably had two dark nights of the soul in my life, one as a child triggered by the traumatic event, the accident I had that I speak about in the superstition episode. That was an event where I was physically injured in an accident that led me to an extreme crisis of faith at a really young age, age eight I think I was. And it had all the emotions of a dark night of the soul, and I know that that was the beginning point of my spiritual awakening, but it took years and years before I came back to visit my true self. The second was much more recent. It was during the pandemic. I'm sure I have that in common with a lot of you listening, and a lot of people in the collective, I feel like there was a collective energy that led many of us, many of our souls to start tapping deep within us, asking us to listen. And during that time, for me, that involved a state of depression. It involved suffering from illness. It involved emotional break.

There was a lot that went on with that. And again, it wasn't even the pandemic that triggered that for me. It was the culmination of a number of years straying from my authenticity, going to a job where I would put up a mask. Earlier in my career, I really was able to progress by being myself, being my true self, and I did have some destructive patterns in there, but ultimately it was a really lovely time, a happy time, a time where I made lots of friends and had some really good, amazing progress in my career based on just my personality and my outlook and the way I communicated and acted with people.

I can't even tell you why, if I look back after that period, I started to put up a wall where I did not want to be seen for who I was, especially at work. And it led me to feel completely disconnected from myself to the point where I didn't know who I was and I didn't know who knew me, which triggered all kinds of emotional turmoil. And I'll go into the emotions that we feel during a dark night of the soul next, but that more recent dark night of the soul, it really led me to the void where only my true self existed. It led me to an almost visceral experience of my old childhood wounds that were created by that earlier trauma and were never really worked through, and my outer world was creating an experience that was there to challenge my wounding, to challenge me to heal that wounding.

And the experience confronted me with the fact that I was alone in this life. That it was ultimately up to me to provide myself with love and safety and happiness, that I couldn't depend on anyone else for that. Because if I did, no one is perfect. And when it comes to expectations about love and care and respect, people do make mistakes. People do fuck up sometimes, and truly, the only person I or any of you can depend upon to put you first is you. 

So I was responsible for healing myself. I was responsible for providing myself with the love that I felt I was missing. I was responsible for providing myself with a safe environment and with a happy and harmonious environment and life.

And so that was a lengthy process for me, a painful process. It was also so incredibly emancipating because when I started to come out of that dark night, I started to see the light. I started to put myself first. I started to meet my true self, and in so many ways how alike that true self was to my younger self, to my childhood self. The things that were giving me joy and pleasure were so simple, and I started to remember memories of myself doing these things when I was a child, which is such a beautiful experience. 

So as we remember from the story of the caterpillar turning into the butterfly, that sensation of what it is to emerge transformed with all these new skills and new values and a new experience to explore, it's just a beautiful thing, but it doesn't mean it's not painful. 

So let's talk about what it feels like when you're in the goo. It's dark, it's a dark place. It can involve very deep depression. There's a lot of gloom, a lot of despair, a lot of feelings of hurt and hopelessness. So it's a really hard place to be.

It also involved a lot of sadness. So there was this emotional breakdown that I experienced that led me to a point where I no longer knew myself because I'd always been such a happy and upbeat and optimistic person. So to be someone who was overwhelmed with sadness and sorrow on a daily basis was just so difficult, and paired with my illness, I was experiencing frequent emotional overwhelm, which is really challenging to manage because it's at that point when you feel like you are losing yourself, you are losing control. 

It's very common to lose all meaning. It's the feeling of this emptiness when nothing that you cared about matters to you anymore. It's a feeling of hollowness. and it happens when you start to realize that the stuff that you cared about in your old very 3D life doesn't matter. It doesn't actually matter. And so there's this disintegration of your identity because so much of what we care about forms our outer layer of identity. It's how, how others see us, how others perceive us is how we see ourselves. And once those layers are dissolved and you are just left with you, it emancipating, but it's also very scary, because you have to redefine who you are and what you value and what you care about. 

So on the way to that point, there's this apathy and boredom with your old interests and boredom with everyone and everything. Pretty much you have this sense of disinterest in the things you used to care about, your hobbies, the music you used to like, the things you used to like going out to do. And this lack of meaning can lead you to just allow things to fall away because there's this lack of caring. There's this apathy, but I think that's also your subconscious knowing that you need to shed those things in order for you to feel free enough to be your true self. So these are responsibilities like your job, you might all of a sudden decide that you don't wanna be in your career anymore. It can be friendships, it can be old goals and aspirations. The things you used to think were your dream life. Having a house and a certain car and a marriage in kids, that might completely change. 

It’s really common to feel isolated during this process because no one understands what you are going through and no one can go through it with you. So one of the most challenging parts is that you realize you are all alone in this life. In this world. You come in alone and you leave alone and during the dark night, you are reminded of this and it comes through feelings that people don't understand you. Even the people closest to you don't understand you and you start to disconnect from those relationships, from those people to go with it and to listen to that cause of the soul and go within.

And so this needing to detach in order to do this, it creates a real sense of loneliness. So on the one hand, it's ultimately your choice to detach from those around you, but it doesn't mean you don't feel lonely doing so. It feels like no one cares about you, and I'm sure the people around us feel like we don't care about them.

You also develop a realization that you've changed and you often don't have much in common anymore with your friends, which further adds to that feeling of isolation. You also get to the point where you feel like you don't know yourself because you are discovering who the real you is. So even that process can be isolating because you, the old you who kept your companies no longer.

So through all that, you can end up feeling really lost, extremely lost. Like you don't have a path forward or out. You've lost all your hopes and dreams, and you can end up feeling really stuck. You can also feel a loss of control. So going back to the emotional state, you can be experiencing emotional outbursts because you're having trouble understanding what's going on and trouble relating to others.

Another thing that can happen is the creation of chaos. So sometimes this can be what starts the dark night of the soul as well, and other times it can happen when you're in it. Say you're in it for too long and you really, really are sick of the discomfort and you want it to stop, people can blow shit up in their life to force change. So that's a great way to start this process too. People experiencing a midlife crisis, this was a bit of a trope in movies and TV when I was growing up, where you'd watch a movie and see a man who's reached his midlife have a complete breakdown and just blow up his life. You know, get himself fired and end his marriage with reckless behavior.

And what this really is, is this discomfort in hearing the call of the soul. And so you are so desperate to force the change rather than surrender to it that you create chaos. Another behavior that I would identify as chaotic behavior would be addiction. So another method or pathway to the dark night of the soul is the hitting of rock bottom. Some people might describe those two things as synonymous, but when you reach your rock bottom is when you have hit the depth of the void and there's no other way but up. So rock bottom inevitably leads you to the light when you're in the darkest place. All there is is that glimmer of light, and it might take people a long time in the rock bottom, but the point of the rock bottom is to look for the light.

And again, it's in that depth of darkness that you realize there is no one who can save you. The only person that can save you is yourself. And in order to do that, you have to meet yourself with deep, unconditional love in order to start climbing upward. And so they're some of the really hard feelings, and they're the feelings that are required to turn yourself, your ego, your being, your identity into mush, into goo.

And that allows you the opportunity to rebuild, to redesign, to birth that newly awakened self. So what's interesting, upon reflection, is that when I was putting together that list of the emotions, that emotional journey of being in the goo, fear didn't come up. And that's because once you are in the goo, there's nothing left to be afraid of. You're there to feel all the other feelings. The fear comes before that. And that was the journey in the previous episode, the facing of the fear. Because once you get through that part, it's time to feel all the other emotions that the fear is trying to guard you from experiencing. 

And that's the ego. And while the ego, it's its job to protect you, if you don't face your fear, if you don't immerse yourself in discomfort, you don't evolve. You don't get to evolve. You don't get to awaken. And so for me, the dark night of the soul isn’t an ego death. I don't like talking about ego in that way because it's such an important part of us surviving. It's more a realization of ego and understanding of ego. And a redefining of the role of your ego going forward, a redefining of the authority of your true, authentic self, your soul over your ego, because up to that point, your ego is calling the shots. And again, this is a lifelong process to collaborate, communicate with your ego, to manage your ego. But it plays such an important job. So I really see this as the transformation of the ego rather than the death of the ego. 

And so where did all those emotions lead me? Well, like I said, it was extremely difficult and an extremely long process for me that I'd say lasted up to three years, I think. But once I came out of it, once I'd hit what felt like my rock bottom, I realized I was responsible for saving myself from the darkness.

And here's the thing, the darkness isn't bad and the light isn't good. They both exist to validate the other. So in order, and this is part of the meaning of the dark night of the soul, being immersed in the dark and lacking the light, you are able to see the light for what it is, and you're able to see the dark for what it is. And it's at that point of realization when you start to seek the light and you start to find ways to cultivate what feels impossible, cultivate ways of bringing that light back into your life. And the Hermit Card is a wonderful teacher here in the Tarot because the hermit card shows us that the light resides within us.

We hold that in a light, and that's what the journey of the dark Night is all about; discovering or rediscovering our inner light and finding that tiny dim flame. And blowing on it and nurturing it in order to become brighter and warmer and to provide radiation. 

And so as you emerge, as the butterfly out of the cocoon, your inner light starts to radiate outwards and starts to reach people again and starts to let you up. And it's such a beautiful process. There's nothing like it really, the feelings that you experience after such a time of darkness and low vibration emotional states and those very difficult and challenging emotions to start to feel those happier, brighter, warmer feelings is just so beautiful and you don't forget those memories, and that's really what this time in this eclipse season has been for me. Not only has it reminded me of how I felt during my dark night, but it's reminded me of how it felt to emerge out of it, to rediscover myself and redesign myself and those other feelings that I am anchoring into now.

They are inspiring me to make changes in my life in order to rekindle my flame, to make my flame burn as warmly and brightly as possible so that I can help warm others. So I think I'll talk about that in next week's episode, the process of self devotion that came from my dark night of the soul. That process of rediscovering myself, redefining my values and reestablishing my identity in a more authentic way.

55:17     [Natalie Grace]

So I hope you've received some helpful insight from this episode. If you are going through this time, my heart is with you. It's so hard. But know that you are gonna come out of it. You're going to come out of it a brighter, more radiant being, and that's a really beautiful thing. 

Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode.I'm so grateful for your presence and your energy. 

If you would like to work with me, I offer soul transmission readings. Just check the show notes for links to book in with me. 

I also do lunar live streams on Instagram for the full moon and the New Moon, and sometimes some tarot parties thrown in here and there.

If you would like to experience an Akashic Tarot forecast for the collective in real time, check out the links in the show notes, or follow me on Instagram on my tarot account @crystalauratarot. My next live stream is happening on Tuesday, November eight at 9:00 PM Australian Eastern Daylight savings time. That's Melbourne time and that works out to Tuesday morning, North American time for the Full Moon in Taurus. 

It's also a lunar eclipse on that night, and we'll be together for the exact time of the Lunar Eclipse and also the full Moon. It's always beautiful when we're in circle together at those moments of totality.

So if you'd like to come and join me, what I do in those sessions is I deliver an Akashic  activation, which is some channeling, which you're familiar with now if you've been listening to recent episodes, as well as a four card Tarot forecast for the collective where I work with the energy of the tarot to help us navigate the energy for the next two to four weeks with specific advice for our emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical energy bodies. So I'd love for you to join me. Like I said, head on over to @crystalauratarot on Instagram and just click the little calendar on my profile and you can get alerts for all my live streams. 

57:45     [Natalie Grace]

That's it for now. Thank you again for joining me. I hope you have a really beautiful week and are experiencing some wonderful transformation in your life, thanks to this Scorpio Taurus Eclipse. 

So until next week, I wish you peace and I wish you love.

58:00     [Music]