Spiritual Dryness: The well has gone dry. Here's what I'm noticing.

I'm not a mystic. But understanding growth and transformation through this lens, the dark night of the soul, has mattered to me my whole life. This is my third descent into the darkness.

The first was my spine. That one didn't happen in a single moment. It took me a long time to actually make sense of what shattering my spine had done to me. It's the thing that got me into massage therapy, and eventually it showed me that I could spontaneously heal my own body, and help other people release themselves from the pain trapped in theirs.

The second one came when I was so sick and tired of the suffering and the stupidity on this planet. A healer I was working with told me that if I didn't want to be here anymore, I should just kill myself. She was testing me, obviously. I told her that would be a waste. She said, then leave a legacy you'd be proud to puppet from wherever you end up once you're no longer here. That conversation is what birthed my work with money.

This one is different. It has some of the same elements, but I'm present to it in real time this time, not piecing it together after the fact. That's a strange gift, honestly. One thing I learned from the first two dark nights is to journal what's happening while it's happening. I don't always remember the wisdom or the lessons. I just feel them. But reading back through old entries has given me so much I would have otherwise lost. So that's what this is. Me writing it as it's happening, not after I've already made peace with it. You're coming on this one with me.

There's a word for what I'm experiencing right now. Aridity, or the dryness. Teresa of Avila, the sixteenth century Spanish mystic, wrote about it using a well. You go out to draw water the way you always have. You lower the rope. And nothing comes up. The well itself has gone dry.

That's closer to what this actually feels like, rather than sadness or grief. Parched. No juice in anything. No life force behind the things that used to move me. John of the Cross names this exact dryness as the first sign a soul is entering the night. The marker that something in you is already moving.

If you looked at my life from the outside right now, it looks pretty great. I have a great partner. I travel. I live in a beautiful home. It looks like I know exactly what my work in the world is. But that's not what it feels like on the inside. It feels dry. It feels empty.

Here are five signs I'd tell you to watch for, if you think you might be in something similar.

1. A heaviness that colours everything.

I wake up with this emptiness and it seems to colour everything around me. I'm doing all the things they say to do. Meditate, exercise, eat right, gratitude practices, breathe. And still the negative mind chatter can take over. Interrupting it is my greatest challenge right now.

2. A loneliness no connection actually changes.

I've struggled with this loneliness for a long time. I try to engage, to be transparent, to share my heart with people. It never quite feels good. It leaves me in this space of complaining, or throwing up my emotions on someone, and we both just swirl in a low vibration together. I feel some connection, but it comes from commiseration. That's not the same thing.

3. A total loss of interest in things you used to care about.

My purpose, my mission, it's all felt hollow lately, not important. If I'm honest, some days the actual work of sitting with people's money doesn't pull at me the way it used to. That one scares me a little to admit out loud. Also, feeling grateful and appreciating beauty seems none existent. 

4. A longing for something...(for me it's my vision or dream)

I wish this one had more clarity for me. The longing I have is for something I've never actually experienced before. Envisioning my future has been a daily practice of mine for years. Not seeing those visions manifest has left me feeling hopeless, even though I'm not fully acknowledging everything that already has come true. It just doesn't feel the way I thought it would. Yeah, I know how that sounds. Like a privileged woman complaining.

5. A harsh judgment of myself, underneath everything.

The self judgment, the self loathing, is unbelievable. Bigger than it's ever been in my life. I keep surprising myself with it. I thought I had a solid sense of self, and the harshness rising in me right now is untenable. I don't love who I am right now, in any shape or form. I'm just being honest.

It does feel like the dryness they describe. But there's also this blindness to it. I was reading recently about how the love of source, or God, can shine so brightly on you that it blinds you, and that blinding registers as darkness and overwhelm instead of light. I'm praying that's what's actually happening here, because the connection I am getting these days is coming through in small, scattered pieces. Staying present and asking questions is the key. I know that much for certain.

The stuff in my body is curious to me right now. I think it's saying something. I just can't tell what yet. My right side has all kinds of issues right now: inflammation in my joints, my hip, my neck, my leg.

Is it the doing, masculine energy in me finally speaking up? Is it that I'm off centre? Is it moving me away from something so I can actually become more receptive? Or can I hold gifting and receiving at the same time, and this is just what it feels like while I figure out how?

I don't know which one it is. Whatever it is, the emptiness is annoying, and patience, and continuing to let go, is the only thing that feels right. Even though I forget. Even though I get busy and stop being present more than I'd like to admit.

This is probably why the mystics and the truly spiritual ones throughout history didn't have jobs. Worrying about money genuinely gets in the way of this process. It slows it down.

Some days I don't care about my business, my work, or my purpose at all. I let go and let God. Practically, I can do that. My identity is having a much harder time with it. But I'm surrendering anyway. What else is there to do.

With love, Brenda