The Dark Night of the Soul Unwrapped

After fifteen years of disciplined meditation and spiritual seeking, Paul hit a brick wall. He got ME/CFS, lost his job, his ideas about spirituality crumbled, and he lost interest in all the teachings he had tried so assiduously to follow. With no role in life, and no sense of direction, he felt like he was falling into a bottomless pit. Occasionally, a deeper sense of peace came out of nowhere, but he doubted himself, calling himself crazy. Eventually, after several years, he found himself ready to have a role in the world again.

Amongst other things, Paul and I talk about the impossibility of “achieving” surrender; putting on a brave face and trying not to feel our feelings; the myth of enlightenment; and how therapeutic and spiritual interventions frequently feel like coercion or violation during the dark night. We also discuss drinking the "meditation Kool-Aid", and the blind alley of trying to be a detached witness to our experience. We run with Paul’s metaphor of Sisyphus endlessly rolling the boulder up the hill; we ponder what we’d say to our younger selves; we wonder at how the dark night stretched our capacity to be with ourselves; and we mull over the paradox of being grateful for having suffered.

Paul Currie worked as an actor as a young adult, before eventually becoming disillusioned and unfulfilled by performance and deciding to embark on a spiritual search. In his mid thirties he experienced a dark night of the soul process during which everything seemed to fall apart, especially all of his notions of becoming a spiritual person or an enlightened person. Following this experience he trained as a counsellor and psychotherapist and now dedicates his time to being with people experiencing challenging and difficult states.

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Fiona Robertson is the author of The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence, and Eve Was a Realist: Poems for the Untamed Heart. She works one to one with people who are going through a dark night or spiritual emergency, accompanying them in this challenging terrain as they rediscover and deepen into their real selves. She also offers a monthly dark night gathering group, and occasional workshops and a reflective space for therapists and counsellors.

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Music by James Waring / Design by Adam McKillop / Artwork by Stefan Armoneit

Having been interested in mythological and spiritual artwork from a young age, John went to university to study comparative symbolism. At twenty-one – while feeling directionless and reading intense philosophy, including Krishnamurti – his sense of self completely disintegrated. He dropped out of his degree course and, for about six months, became a barefoot guru (having left his shoes in an art gallery). He travelled and taught, living in the homes of people who supported him, until he realised that the guru phenomenon – or "circus", as he calls it – didn’t feel congruent. He went back to his family, volunteered at a playgroup to learn how to play, and gradually built a life.

For ten years, he “couldn’t touch” the whole experience. Eventually, however, he came across Stanislav Grof and Holotropic Breathwork, and began the slow process of embodying and integrating everything that had transpired during his guru period. Amongst other things, John and I discuss the pitfalls of being a guru; learning how to navigate in a place of unknowing; the necessity of having maps that resonate; and how we can bear witness to ourselves. We also talk a little about his work with the Spiritual Crisis Network, and share an important pause towards the end of the episode.

John Ablett is the author of The Accidental Guru, one of the accounts in Breaking Open: Finding a Way Through Spiritual Emergency. He has had a variety of careers, including being a graphic designer, a computer programmer, and a social worker. He co-facilitates a monthly Spiritual Crisis Network peer support group, online and in person in the Sheffield (UK) area, details here. You can see examples of John’s transpersonal artwork on his website, Holotropic Mandalas.

Fiona Robertson is the author of The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence, and Eve Was a Realist: Poems for the Untamed Heart. She works with many people who are going through a dark night or spiritual emergency, accompanying them in this challenging terrain as they rediscover and deepen into their real selves. She also offers a monthly dark night gathering group, and occasional workshops for therapists and counsellors.

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Mentions

John mentions The Stormy Search for the Self, by Christina Grof and Stanislav Grof.

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You’re welcome to contact The Dark Night of the Soul Unwrapped via email: [email protected]

Music by James Waring / Design by Adam McKillop / Artwork by Stefan Armoneit

Following on from our first conversation, Li and I begin with the hamster wheel that is capitalism, colonialism and imperialism, and the effects of living within power structures that threaten us in a variety of ways, depending on who we are. We talk about how it was impossible to keep up being an efficient cog in that wheel during our dark nights, and how it’s natural to no longer want to participate in “this deadening culture.”

We discuss the “con job” that often masquerades as spirituality; how the dark night rattles the construction of personhood and all our ideas about who we are, who we’re supposed to be and who we shouldn’t be; our somatic survival patterns and the nature of what Li calls the mental body; and the wisdom and clarity of the heart body. We also touch into the undoing of binaries; the expanding capacity for love and compassion towards ourselves and others; times when there’s been a starvation of heart and huge amounts of shame towards ourselves; and totally unexpected moments of grace. Finally, we lean into the realm of unconditionality and connecting to the actual – breath, gravity – and the ongoing dance of being on this planet.

Li Meuser is a full-time student of being fully human, and is deeply passionate about connecting and interrelating. As a somatic therapist, integrative primary prevention trainer, and creative writing facilitator, Li utilizes transformational and wisdom-based practices in supporting people with their somatic intelligence/energies. In learning how to embody our creativity, we are able to consciously choose to discover, move into and remember the realms of interdependency and liberation for all. Li has an extensive collection of science-based recordings to regulate the brain and nervous system on the Insight Timer app.

Connect with Li

Fiona Robertson is the author of The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence, and Eve Was a Realist: Poems for the Untamed Heart. She works with many people who are going through a dark night or spiritual emergency, accompanying them in this challenging terrain as they rediscover and deepen into their real selves. She also offers both a monthly dark night gathering group, and occasional workshops for therapists and counsellors.

Connect with Fiona

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share.

You’re welcome to contact The Dark Night of the Soul Unwrapped via email: [email protected]

Music by James Waring / Design by Adam McKillop / Artwork by Stefan Armoneit

Li’s first dark night began when a relationship suddenly ended, and they found themself beset by heartbreak, their survival strategies stripped. Some time later, an abusive intimate relationship took Li even deeper in, splitting them open in what they describe as “a total unravelling of the wounded me.” They started to feel all the fear – and other emotions – that they’d been masking, denying, avoiding, and hiding. Slowly, Li began to feel the excruciating pain of aloneness and separation – which was, eventually, freeing – and gradually came into a remembering of interconnectedness.

In this episode, we talk about false spiritual narratives and the shame of feeling fear; wanting to die while simultaneously waking up from our wounds; moments of gratitude for the mundane; and craving realness. We also touch into our creatureness; moving beyond the colonial mindset of right or wrong into a place of kindness and tenderness; discovering the kind of wisdom that comes from falling apart; and the phase of not being able to see the light at the end of the dark. And we laugh about how much crying we did during our dark nights, and how Li could track their emotional state by the size of their water bill.

Li Meuser is a full-time student of being fully human, and is deeply passionate about connecting and interrelating. As a somatic therapist, integrative primary prevention trainer, and creative writing facilitator, Li utilizes transformational and wisdom-based practices in supporting people with their somatic intelligence/energies. In learning how to embody our creativity, we are able to consciously choose to discover, move into and remember the realms of interdependency and liberation for all. Li has an extensive collection of science-based recordings to regulate the brain and nervous system on the Insight Timer app.

Connect with Li

Fiona Robertson is the author of The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence, and Eve Was a Realist: Poems for the Untamed Heart. She works one to one with people who are going through a dark night or spiritual emergency, accompanying them in this challenging terrain as they rediscover and deepen into their real selves. She also offers a monthly dark night gathering, and occasional workshops and a reflective space for therapists and counsellors.

Connect with Fiona

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share.

You’re welcome to contact The Dark Night of the Soul Unwrapped via email: [email protected]

Music by James Waring / Design by Adam McKillop / Artwork by Stefan Armoneit

Mike recently completely his PhD on the empirical evidence for interventions in spiritual crisis. Always interested in myth, magic, and mysticism, he has extensively studied religious and spiritual phenomena through the lens of transpersonal psychology. His research brings much-needed academic attention to an experience so often overlooked by both the spiritual and therapeutic worlds, and is deeply informed by his work supporting people going through spiritual crisis.

In this episode, we talk about a central aspect of Mike’s research; the strands of what he broadly refers to as grounding – the practices, attitudes, and behaviours that might support a move from disconnection towards connection, or ungroundedness towards groundedness, during spiritual crisis. In the order we discuss them, these themes are: a connection to self, world, and others (including the transpersonal other); keeping a foot in both worlds; cultivating a relationship with experience; word-weaving with embodied metaphors; a centred, balanced, and embodied self; a balance between containment and release; resonance or contagion; and last but by no means least, a sense of humour. We also discuss the importance of creative expression; the difference between naming and labelling; and the interplay between culture and spiritual crisis.

Dr Mike Rush is a researcher, hypno-psychotherapist, and co-director of The Spiritual Crisis Network in the UK. He has published in a variety of academic journals on subjects as varied as Near Death Experiences, the neuroscience of religious experience, and Western Esotericism. He co-facilitates online and in-person peer support groups for people going through spiritual crisis, and also offers one to one counselling and consultation.

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Fiona Robertson is the author of The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence, and Eve Was a Realist: Poems for the Untamed Heart. She works one to one with people who are going through a dark night or spiritual emergency, accompanying them in this challenging terrain as they rediscover and deepen into their real selves. She also offers both a monthly dark night gathering group, and occasional workshops and a reflective space for therapists and counsellors.

Connect with Fiona

Mentions

Mike mentions the following organisation and individuals:

The Spiritual Crisis Network UK.

Marie-Grace Brook’s list of 84 possible grounding or integration practices.

Emma Bragdon.

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You’re welcome to contact The Dark Night of the Soul Unwrapped via email: [email protected]

Music by James Waring / Design by Adam McKillop / Artwork by Stefan Armoneit

Hany’s dark night began in earnest in his forties, although he’d been aware of feeling different since he was eight. As a child, he’d tried to express to the adults around him what he was experiencing, but it wasn’t until a therapist suggested many years later that he was in a dark night that he began to understand what might have been happening throughout his life. After going through countless rock bottoms and navigating blindly in the dark, he started to follow his own river and found himself gradually coming back to his life.

Amongst other things, we talk about how we experienced words in whole new ways during the dark night, and how our understanding of them continually evolves; how the dark night is a process of shedding layers that often weren’t ours in the first place; and how there are days when getting out of bed counts as an achievement. We also discuss how our intellects had to begin to follow rather than leading; the loneliness of being unmet or misunderstood; how the unravelling of layers, both personal and collective, is not a linear process; and how writing can play an essential role in our emergence.

Hany Ezzat has walked through the dark night of the soul and come out writing. A storyteller at his core, he crafts narratives that connect, challenge, and stay. With twenty-six years in branding and creative strategy, he builds with meaning. R.A.W. is the work shaped from his own process — a way of witnessing people return to themselves without theatrics. The rest is still unfolding.

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Fiona Robertson is the author of The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence, and Eve Was a Realist: Poems for the Untamed Heart. She works one to one with people who are going through a dark night or spiritual emergency, accompanying them in this challenging terrain as they rediscover and deepen into their real selves. She also offers a monthly dark night gathering group, and occasional workshops and a reflective space for therapists and counsellors.

Connect with Fiona

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share.

You’re welcome to contact The Dark Night of the Soul Unwrapped via email: [email protected]

Music by James Waring / Design by Adam McKillop / Artwork by Stefan Armoneit

Following on from our first conversation, Jessica and I delve into the moment she first heard the term ‘spiritual bypassing’ and realised that’s what she’d been doing, and we explore the rejection or exclusion of the body which is central to spiritual bypassing. Based on our childhood experiences, we touch into cPTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder) and the extent to which many of the teachings of self-negating non-duality mirror the messages of narcissistic abuse, shaming the self and its expression. We reflect on being drawn to the teachings that replicated our survival strategies and how, in Jessica’s words, “The shift from self-abandonment to self-compassion has been the most extraordinary shift.”

We also talk about the damage wrought by self-negating non-duality and the cult-like dynamics that are often at play in spiritual communities; the shaming of need and the notion that suffering is a story; the importance of healthy boundaries; ego-bashing, how it perpetuates the inner gaslighter, and what our understanding of the ego is now; how dogmatic teachings that propound truth with a capital T erode self-trust and undermine our ability to critically question; and the attraction of and problems with certainty and wanting to know the ‘ultimate truth’.

Jessica Eve is raising awareness about the dangers of self-negating spirituality like Neo-Advaita, supporting folks healing from harmful effects, and inspiring humanistic, life-affirming alternatives. Explore her blog, youtube channel and more! If you'd like to join her online peer support group, Collective Soul Revival, please fill out this form.

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Fiona Robertson is the author of The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence, and Eve Was a Realist: Poems for the Untamed Heart. She works one to one with people who are going through a dark night or spiritual emergency, accompanying them in this challenging terrain as they rediscover and deepen into their real selves. She also offers both a monthly dark night gathering group, and occasional workshops and a reflective space for therapists and counsellors.

Connect with Fiona

Mentions

Jessica mentions Guy Smith, and interviews him here. She also mentions author and philosopher Tim Freke, who has critiqued non-dual spiritual teachings, and therapist Michael Lydon, who talks about how they can reproduce trauma.

Jessica cites several non-dual teachers, including Rupert Spira: This is spiritual bypassing and I won’t apologise and Adyashanti: Don’t trust yourself.

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You’re welcome to contact The Dark Night of the Soul Unwrapped via email: [email protected]

Music by James Waring / Design by Adam McKillop / Artwork by Stefan Armoneit

Jessica’s dark night began a few years after she became immersed in the teachings of self-negating nonduality as a way to silence her ruminating mind and disappear her intense emotional suffering. Initially, she experienced the dissolution of her sense of self described by the Neo Advaita gurus, and felt that she’d found the magic wand that would erase her, leaving only boundlessness. Gradually, however, she became increasingly and disturbingly dissociated and unable to relate. Terrified that she might have irretrievably damaged her fundamental human capacities, she embarked on the slow and painful task of reclaiming the parts that had previously been excluded, including her sense of humour and vivacity, and eventually came back to wholeness. 

Amongst other things, we talk about what drew us to the no self teachings, and why they are like a nectar laced with poison; how devastating it is to realise that we’ve chosen spiritual teachings which replicate earlier abuse; and how important it is to begin to include all the parts we’ve previously tried to transcend, destroy, or get rid of. We also talk about coming back to life when we’ve been half dead, being angry with spiritual teachers, and the beauty of both/and.

Jessica Eve is raising awareness about the dangers of self-negating spirituality like Neo-Advaita, supporting folks healing from harmful effects, and inspiring humanistic, life-affirming alternatives. Explore her blog, YouTube channel and more! If you'd like to join her online peer support group, Collective Soul Revival, please fill out this form.

Fiona Robertson is the author of The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence, and Eve Was a Realist: Poems for the Untamed Heart. She works one to one with people who are going through a dark night or spiritual emergency, accompanying them in this challenging terrain as they rediscover and deepen into their real selves. She also offers a monthly dark night gathering group, and occasional workshops and a reflective space for therapists and counsellors.

Connect with Fiona

Mentions

Fiona quotes some lines from the poem, When You Wish It Were Not So, from her poetry collection, Eve Was a Realist: Poems for the Untamed Heart. (Available in paperback and ebook from the usual online outlets).

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You’re welcome to contact The Dark Night of the Soul Unwrapped: [email protected]

Music by James Waring / Design by Adam McKillop / Artwork by Stefan Armoneit

After many years of inner healing and therapy work, an inner knowing came clearly to Helen; “I have to keep my heart open, no matter what.” Recognising that she had been living in her head, disconnected from her heart, she took the risk of speaking what was in her heart. Doing so triggered a profound energetic and emotional reaction. It was as if she was looking over the edge of a cliff with no option but to step off.

Amongst other things, we talk about having to feel all the material we were never going to reach by other means; the innate wisdom of the inner healer and how it runs the show; brief moments of being surrendered; and how the dark night is an intensification of a much longer process. We also touch on separation; the integrity that comes when we become more integrated; the bone-crushing loneliness of being in the dark night; and being wrung out like a wet cloth. Helen shares moments of both incredible pain and clarity from her journals; we discuss the question of who we are without the pain; and we ponder the ebb and flow of “moving out of the mind and into the heart.”

Helen Hutchinson lives in the beautiful Scottish Highlands. She is a taxi driver and tour guide. She is also a certified Holotropic Breathwork® facilitator and is in TRE Practitioner training (Trauma and Tension Release). Experiencing a dark night can feel so isolating, therefore Helen wishes to create connection by normalising these conversations. She co-hosts a support group for all aspects of Spiritual Emergence. You can contact her via email: [email protected]

Fiona Robertson is the author of The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence, and Eve Was a Realist: Poems for the Untamed Heart. She works one to one with people who are going through a dark night or spiritual emergency, accompanying them in this challenging terrain as they rediscover and deepen into their real selves. She also offers a monthly dark night gathering group, and occasional workshops and a reflective space for therapists and counsellors.

Connect with Fiona

Mentions

Helen cites the Rumi quote: “You’ve been walking the water’s edge, holding up your robes to keep them dry. You must dive naked under, deeper, under a thousand times deeper! Love flows down.”

She also mentions Mark Matousek’s book, When You’re Falling, Dive: Lessons in the Art of Living.

I couldn’t find a reference for the other piece Helen quotes from. Please let us know if you have a citation for it!

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You’re welcome to contact The Dark Night of the Soul Unwrapped via email: [email protected]

Music by James Waring / Design by Adam McKillop / Artwork by Stefan Armoneit

Following on from our first conversation, Julianne describes how things began to change when she came to a kind of acceptance of the limitations of her physical health. We discuss the difference between the idea of surrendering, and the energetics of being brought to an actual surrender. Our conversation also covers how she sought order in the outer world as a way to control the chaos of her inner world; the layers of shame and judgement around being a victim, and how shaming spiritual teachings can be; searching for enlightenment because it’s too painful to be in our bodies; how bodies are shamed by religion; and the okayness of feeling what’s here without judgement.

We also talk about the pain of trying to prove that we’re not what the shame tells us we are; how we both grappled with death in the dark night, including the dying of old beliefs and paradigms; how we got pulled back into life and aliveness; and how the harshness of the perfectionist inner critic has gradually given way to a deep inner tenderness and kindness. And to end, Julianne is inspired to share The Journey, by brilliant poet Mary Oliver.

Julianne Eanniello is a somatic inquiry facilitator, TRE® Provider and Certified Reflexologist. Having navigated her own dark night of the soul, Julianne brings deep empathy and insight to her work, guiding individuals on their journey toward holistic wellness. Her integrative approach addresses physical, emotional, and energetic imbalances, creating space for profound healing and transformation. Through her compassionate presence and skilled practices, Julianne empowers clients to reconnect with their innate capacity for balance, resilience, and wholeness.

Connect with Julianne

Fiona Robertson is the author of The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence, and Eve Was a Realist: Poems for the Untamed Heart. She works one to one with people who are going through a dark night or spiritual emergency, accompanying them in this challenging terrain as they rediscover and deepen into their real selves. She also offers a monthly dark night gathering group, and occasional workshops and a reflective space for therapists and counsellors.

Connect with Fiona

Mentions

Julianne mentions the book series Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch.

She also shares The Journey by Mary Oliver.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share.

You’re welcome to contact The Dark Night of the Soul Unwrapped via email: [email protected]

Music by James Waring / Design by Adam McKillop / Artwork by Stefan Armoneit