Is it "just" grief? Or a dark night of the soul...

Beloveds,

Oof this last week brought up lots of new/old feels, namely around grief. (Curious if you felt it too?)

So it was great timing when a good friend asked if there was only darkness and despair in my dark night experiences. My answer was quick and sure: No. There’s always light. There’s always a way to levity, as well. (One of the the things I’m most proud of in my healing work is my ability to bring loving humor into some of the most challenging parts of a client’s healing journey.)

This past week brought me into deeper presence with new layers of unmet grief around loss of family. Mother’s Day stirred the pot this year and I’ve been sitting with my decision not to have children and where that meets the end of a marriage that constituted family for me. As someone with four placements in Cancer, I often joke that I was born to be a wife, yet this week I returned to the knowingness that I haven’t yet created the connected family experience my Cancerian South Node craves.

But that grief isn’t necessarily the same as a dark night of the soul experience. You can take an intense journey into the depths of grief and sorrow - into the deepest parts of yourself - and yet it’s still not the dark night of the soul.

But here’s the truth, dearheart. You can’t take a conscious dark night journey without also experiencing grief.

And in both a grief journey and a dark night journey, there is light. There is illumination, inspiration and levity, even.

I go into this in much greater detail in the video below, including sharing a personal story of how grief set off a very long dark night journey for me a few years ago.

And in case you missed it, I had a super powerful convo with at Dawn of Discernment podcast about all of this and what happens when the personal dark night meets the collective dark night. We went DEEP. You can find that here.

The Spirit notes in today’s episode:

• Is there only darkness and despair in a dark night?

• How you know if it’s “just” grief or if you are in a dark night?

• When the two coincide – my personal story

• Why grief is unavoidable in a conscious dark night journey

• What that means for us in our collective dark night (what we have to see, what we have to feel, what we have to withdraw consent from, and what we get to build)

• A closing practice to remember that you are love

I love hearing from you! Are there other topics you wish I’d speak to from my kitchen table? Hit reply to access my virtual suggestion box, would ya? :)

>>> If these messages resonate, please share with one person in your soul fam. This is my ministry of love and it really helps if you like, subscribe and share. I appreciate you so much.

Remember, your feelings are meant to be felt. And then to move right on through you. They ask to be witnessed and then to be integrated as new “information” in your being.

Yep, it can be challenging. If you need support navigating this great awakening, deep grief or your own dark night of the soul, let’s talk. We were not meant to do any of this alone.

Big Love,
Anné

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P.S. this dog cracks me up

OK, so I guess I could stand a shift in perspective. Tunes and I are family. I get to be dog-mama to this really ridiculous creature who cracks me up with her funny little gestures. I’m probably just being a proud dog-mom here, and this might not appear silly to you, but when I saw her laying outside my office door the other day with her little sweet feet touching the flagstone, I cracked up. It looks like she’s playing the stone piano.

No matter the grief that was present for me, in that moment I literally laughed out loud. I’m told it’s a heeler thing, that they have big personalities inside those little bodies. Wherever it comes from, she’s always ready to tickle my funny bone, and for that I’m very grateful. xo