About four months after my first Spiritual Awakening and a year and nine months after being baptized and deeply connected within my relationship with God, I entered into a Dark Night of the Soul. I wasn't sure of the name right away; it wasn't until I typed in some symptoms I was having on Google and eventually came across the name. I knew something was different in my life right away. All of a sudden, the spiritual things such as reading the Bible, listening to Gospel music, and watching Daystar Television, among some other things, I found no joy anymore. My prayer life became dull and empty because I felt like I couldn't pray. I even had a hard time remembering scriptures that I normally would quote daily while praying. Then I noticed how angry I became with my kids, neighbors, and situations that were going on at that time in my life. I became materialistic and started having vivid sexual visions and dreams. At one point I felt like I was no longer on my spiritual path. I felt like I had started to go back into my old ways and the mindset I had before my spiritual awakening. My emotions were all over the place, crying one minute, mad and frustrated the next. It also seemed to me that everything that could go wrong, went wrong. When I would go out to my kid's school I didn't feel like or want to interact with the other parents or people in general. I was miserable, and emotional and wanted to be left alone. While going through my DNOTS I didn't tell anybody because everyone that was around me rather at work or home I just knew would not understand. Even through all that the absolute worst thing for me was no longer feeling God's presence anymore. All I could do was cry every time I thought and felt like there was separation from God and his grace.
My personal DNOTS experience lasted for six months but things had begun to get better towards the end. When Spirit spoke to my heart and reminded me of the scripture "Do not be afraid or terrified, for God is with you, He will never leave or forsake you." Deuteronomy 31:6 NIV I began to embrace this part of my journey and to have the patience to let God do whatever He needed to do within me as a person and in my life to bring me closer to Him and to become more authentic within myself. Eventually, there were days when I felt light and happy but a few days later back to the sadness again. I didn't know back then that was God giving me a break here and there. I felt my DNOTS experience was getting ready to end because I started noticing that I wasn't crying every day or night anymore. The days of no crying started turning into weeks. Also, I then started coming across more information online that talked about the DNOTS being a time of transformation in one's life where the Ego is dying, where people, habits, patterns, and belief systems that no longer serve you are dropping off because it's a false way of being. What no longer resonated with my inner truth had to go. Finally, it was all over, I remember waking up one morning feeling so at peace and happy which led to another spiritual awakening, another higher level of consciousness. My false self had died, and I had awakened to my true self which is love. Now that I look back on my DNOTS experience what helped me through was continuing to have faith. Even though I felt like I couldn't pray, I still remember asking God for strength throughout the entire experience. Going out for a run or walk in nature helped me a lot, as well as having many days of being alone to do the emotional releasing usually done by crying. Also listening to music with either soft words or no words at all. My favorite was Enya's Memory of Trees album.
Overall, going through a DNOTS is a true blessing similar to a metamorphosis of a butterfly. Dropping off layers of old stuff that prevented me from becoming the beautiful being that I truly am. As I go through these spiritual experiences along my journey a lot of my situations and circumstances may differ from another person's experience. When I learn how to embrace my journey and know that all is well and that everything that happens to me is for my greatest good, I become stronger in my authentic self, and I can help others along the way by sharing what I’ve experienced and been through.
1/31/17
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