Dark Nights of the Soul
It starts one day when you find yourself getting on your own nerves.
Your sharp edges don’t round.
You’re shrill.
Even the purring cat can’t calm you down.
The days feel daunting.
Heavy somehow.
Hopeless, aimless, pointless, meaningless.
Like you may as well give up trying so hard.
Like you don’t matter one little bit in the grand scheme of things.
Some days you wonder if the world would be better served if you just stopped, just didn’t, just took a time-out for a while.
Let Dad feed and water the kids.
Let all your to-dos stay undone and all your emails stay unanswered.
Let someone else buy the bread, balance the bank account, pay the bills.
This may be low blood sugar, hormone-related, or stress-induced.
It could be daylight savings’ fault.
It may be a small dark moment in your otherwise bright life.
Or it could be your dark night of the soul.
It’s not that every thought is true right now, but it’s okay.
Don’t drown it out, don’t pull away.
Let it be dark.
Let it be night.
Let your soul get some rest.
Morning is on its way.
💛
Some days you long to be cared for, provided for, doted over, supported, maybe even pampered a little bit.
You feel guilty and very “first world problem” about it.
As a woman with so much to be grateful for, it’s you who’s expected to do the caring, the providing, the doting, supporting, and pampering.
And really, you are grateful.
Still, you long for it.
This is your soul.
She’s asking you to care for her too.
She’s asking you to notice her.
So give her a moment, an evening, a whole day, a long walk in the woods.
Give her a good book by a cozy fire, a few hours with You’ve Got Mail, a pizza with pineapple smothering the whole top, a few hours of quiet.
Care for her.
She will take care of you.
Let it be dark.
Let it be night.
Let your soul get some rest.
Morning is on its way.
💛
Joseph Campbell is credited with saying,
"The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation.
When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed."
Something tells me these words might land true this morning. Something tells me at least one someone reading this little blog needs to know that other people don’t thrive all day every day, too.
Something tells me someone needs to know dark moments and dark nights of the soul are real things that happen to other people too.
Usually in November.
They do.
So I leave you with the words above.
They’re from my own private journal.
They don’t mean anything is wrong with me or I don’t love my life.
They don’t mean I’m not aware I have so much to be grateful for.
They don’t mean anything other than I’m normal—and you are, too.
And it’s November.
Because chances are, even if you’ve never written words like those in your own journal, you’ve felt them before. You may even feel them often. And in the moments when you get very quiet and the TV’s off, the phone is shut down, and no one’s talking, you might even feel them so deeply your chest aches and your breathing gets shallow.
It’s okay. It’s just your soul talking. She needs a little bit of care.
Don’t drown it out, don’t pull away.
Morning is on its way.
You will get through it.
You will thrive again.
I promise.
💛
Thankfully, you don’t have to go through it alone.
That’s 100% why I write these blogs.
If it’s been a while since you’ve been to my little corner of the internet, there’s a new home page tagline there that’s been driving my online work lately—and I’m kind of in love with it.
It’s this ⤵
Empowering women to thrive
At home, at work, and where it matters most—inside.
What does that mean exactly? I’m still working out the details and deciding what to shift for 2024, but here’s what I’ve got so far ⤵
Empower = awaken insight, inspire, equip, encourage
Women = the caretakers, the okay-makers, the ones who make sure every little thing is gonna be alright
To Thrive = living a life (days, moments, weeks, years) that she feels good about now and can be proud of when she’s older
At home = time for what matters most to her with the people who matter most to her
At Work = whatever her hand finds to do, inside or outside the home, or both
On the inside = knowing she’s free to live a life she loves while she’s there for the people she loves the most
💛
This feels good. It feels like me.
It’s led my soul to ask why I write our Friday morning emails, why I spend time and money on my website, why I keep sharing bits of my life online the way I have for the past decade.
I do this because I think every woman’s story matters.
Whether we share those stories with each other over coffee, around a campfire, at a playdate, or through something we write, sing, or make.
I do this because some women will never have a chance to share theirs.
I do this because I care about you, dear reader.
I do this because I have a life that’s continually being changed and transformed by encountering other people’s stories, by knowing I’m not alone, and I feel an intense call to be that for someone else — even one person is enough, especially if that one person is reading this right now.
I hope these words help you thrive in some way today.
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