When someone pulls back from their life, we want a reason. A breakup, a falling out, a diagnosis. Something to point to. We love a storyline. Reality TV built a whole industry on it.

I've pulled back, and people have noticed. Some have even asked if Jen and I broke up. We didn't. We're good. Really good. She's the one person I can be around right now.

There's no storyline here. Nothing external set this off. Nobody did anything. Everything that's happening is internal.

I'm in a dark night of the soul.

So instead of a storyline, I want to offer a map. And an invitation to hold this with me, instead of watching it. It's not a train wreck.

What is a dark night of the soul?

John of the Cross gave it the name. In 1911, Evelyn Underhill studied hundreds of mystics across centuries and religions and found the same path over and over. Five stages: Awakening, Purgation, Illumination, Dark Night and Union.

Here's the part I love. She says these stages don't stay in their lanes. They overlap and swing back and forth. Light, then dark, then light again. That's exactly how it's been for me.

Stage 1: Awakening

For over 18 years I pushed the boulder uphill. Pivot. Change direction. Feel close. Then, nope.

Awakening came when the effort ran out. I couldn't push anymore. Something in me knew the old way was done, even though I couldn't see the new one yet.

Stage 2: Purgation

Underhill calls this stage the purification of the self. Everything that isn't really you starts to go.

For me that means taking apart identity pillars that held me up for decades. And it means going back for my little girl who built them.

My 2 year old needed to know she mattered. With my higher self holding her, I was able to give her unconditional love, presence and connection. She feels stronger now. I started working with her almost three years ago, but I didn't REALLY do it until recently.

My 8 year old held enormous rage. I'd decided that if my brother or anyone in my family made me angry, they won. So I never let them see it. That was how I stayed powerful, or at least how I kept from being overwhelmed by them.

Suppressed rage doesn't disappear. It turns into something else: a lost voice, misdirected power, a false sense of self. Untethered rage is dangerous too. Over the last couple of months, I let it flow, with intensity and with power, while my higher self held space. And it could integrate. It became intense power and resourced focus.

At 13, after a traumatic event, I decided I would never cry again. I shut my heart. That's when I stopped receiving. Support, mentorship, care. Everything became "I can do it myself."

Yesterday I met my 3 year old. I felt fear I never let myself feel. I'd covered it with the belief that I was stupid. Underneath was raw fear that never got to move through me.

Stage 3: Illumination

Then the light comes in.

My 4 year old went to school and the information flooded her. Her brain worked differently, and she couldn't make sense of it. So she became the class clown. Disruptive. Avoiding learning because she didn't know how to do it.

Every day I sit with her while her brain reorganizes. Now she can take the world in without drowning. A calm, regulated 4 year old. And a genius brain I never knew I had.

Healing my 13 year old, I went back through every place someone offered me their wisdom and I couldn't take it in. I'm letting it in now. I'm rewriting those years, from 8 to 14, with mentorship, adult wisdom, support and opportunity. I used to cover them over with being the class clown and feeling stupid.

I have more access to my fullness than I've ever had. It's ripe and rich in there.

Stage 4: The Dark Night

This is the part that surprised me. Underhill puts the dark night after illumination. You get the light, and then you lose your taste for almost everything.

That's where I am with people. I'm cranky. I have less patience. Being loving and kind takes effort I don't have. Even a conversation about the news can tighten my heart, and then all I want is to binge something mindless on Netflix and disappear.

Teresa of Ávila wrote about the silkworm. It spins itself a cocoon and dissolves in there before it becomes the butterfly. Nobody in a cocoon is available for dinner parties.

You'd think all this healing would make me more available. It hasn't. Not yet. The energy is going inside, where the work is.

And maybe some of the crankiness is the healing. Two is the age of "no." I'm finding mine.

Stage 5: Union

Underhill's last stage is the unitive life. She noticed something about the mystics who got there. They didn't stay hidden. They came back into very active lives.

The Zen tradition has a series called the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures that maps the same path. Nine of the ten images are inner work. Only the last one shows the seeker walking back into the marketplace with open hands.

I'm not there yet.

If someone you love goes quiet

They might not owe you a reason. There's no drama to follow. No villain. Nothing to fix.

I'm holding myself in right now. I'd love for you to hold this with me the same way. Witness it with me.

And if you're in your own version of this, nothing is wrong with you. It's never just one thing. Whatever is coming apart in you might be making room.

If this landed for you, send me an email at [email protected]. Tell me about your own dark night. Or just send a few words. "I see you." "I know this energy." That's enough.

One request. Please don't send book recommendations or meditations to listen to right now. The advice is sweet, but honestly, I'm listening deeply. I'm not lost. It's just dark.

I'll keep writing through it.

With love,
Brenda