You know those full moon nights…
The nights when we know the moon is full because our calendar tells us so, and because we feel an intensity stirring beneath the top layer of our skin, which has to be attributed to some greater astrological pull igniting our inner animalistic instincts to howl? …and yet, it’s one of those nights when the sky is shrouded by a thick layer of steamy clouds and so we can’t even reflect on the source of the intensity?
You know those nights?
Well I’m realising that I’m feeling rather stuck, lying sleepless beneath a grey layer of clouds, yet to be greeted by the rays of my insightful friend, the moon.
While dipping my toes in numerous contemporary esoteric communities, I’ve come across the term ‘Dark Night of the Soul’. I’ve often wondered where the term comes from and I’ve always sensed it describes a significantly challenging and yet potentially transformational life phase. I decided to verify my intuition by looking it up:
The 16th century poem, Dark Night of the Soul narrates the journey of the soul to mystical union with God. The journey is called "The Dark Night" in part because darkness represents the fact that the destination—God—is unknowable. (Wikipedia)
Well that certainly explains it - I am most definitely going through one of these dark night phases and I’m staring through the cracks of my window blinds praying for the first whispers from dawn.
Perhaps I can attribute being stuck in this dark night purgatory because a part of my psyche constantly compares my privileged, westernised life to the lives of millions of others suffering globally. What this part of my mind tells me is that comparatively, what I am feeling vulnerable or worried about shouldn’t matter. I therefore, believe that my feelings don't matter, I begin repressing the actuality of the pain I have stored in my cells and my nervous system remains jammed on hyperdrive.
I understand intellectually why dismissing my feelings isn’t helpful. I understand this concept well. I completely understand why dismissing the worthiness of my feelings disregards valid emotions and ultimately, is me gaslighting myself. I can clearly see how debilitating this behaviour is and yet, it’s happening.
I’m also considering that I refuse to teach something that I haven’t yet experienced. I don’t believe I have to be perfect at something or have it all figured out, and I do believe that leading someone to listen to their own guidance system requires me having listened to my guidance system.
So, darn, I guess I’m in training once again.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m in training and I’m also very happy. I have an awesome life with an awesome family, we have so much fun together. I have buckets of gratitude and I’ve also become aware of trenches of fear. It’s hard to hold two entirely opposing feelings at the same time, so much so that my mind doesn’t know what on earth to do with it all?
The main problem with this dark night is that I’ve realised there’s no thinking my way out of it. It’s an experience mostly unaffected by my thoughts and, is therefore even more frustrating as my thoughts love to hold the reins.
Despite this, I also feel love and loved like never before. I feel it exploding like the first rays of morning light out of my skin. Perhaps my increased vulnerability is a result of an increased capacity for the experience of love itself? Actually, I have no doubt that this is exactly what’s happening.
Who invented this love thing anyways? It causes vulnerability on steroids.
Despite studying trauma, trauma responses, associated behaviours and somatic techniques used to regulate my nervous system, anxiety remains a living, breathing, suffocating experience repeatedly activated in me. I have yet to fully embody my intellectual wisdom. I’m working on it and quite disappointingly, it’s taking longer than I had hoped.
As a highly empathic woman and now, adding to the title, an insanely empathic mother, I’ve been struggling when I hear any unsettling news about anything whatsoever. Disturbing stories run vividly through my mind. Despite all conscious attempts to separate, I feel the suffering of everyone involved. I don’t want to, but I experience their perceived pain as if it’s my own. I unconsciously begin to replay the events at random times throughout the day, times when I least expect the horrific stories to surface. It’s incredibly annoying to say the least.
Even some of the most noteworthy Netflix binge recommendations have hurtled me over the edge into a state of full bodily threat.
This is when I assume my dark night began...
On the morning of Sunday, January 12, 2020, I was lying in bed next to my three and a half month old son. I was soaking in a few last glimpses of rest before taking on another blind day of motherhood.
I was using my phone as a sound machine to help Noah sleep, and therefore, I always switched it to airplane mode prior to bed; as a result, I didn’t receive the repeated missed calls from my best friend in Vancouver, or should I call her my ‘other sister’.
Suddenly, the bedroom door opened and Patrick rushed in looking shocked and panicked in a way that requested my nervous system to brace and mirror his body language. I was instantly terrified. All he could manage was to say these words, ‘Lisa. You have to call Britt right now. Elijah is dead.’
(Even today my stomach grips in terror as I write these words on the page. To this day I don’t believe it’s true).
I can’t recall the exact details following or perhaps I don’t want to. The next few days was a whirlwind as I prepared to get a passport for Noah, book flights and arrange to get back to Canada as soon as possible.
Elijah is Britt’s youngest son. On that day he was seventeen years old and is one of the most unique, emotionally mature, deeply caring, talented, courageous, creative, honest and loving young men I have had the pleasure to call my family. I’ve known Elijah since he was eight years old. I was lucky enough to attend his school plays, his grade six graduation, lounge on his couch while he played in his tent outside with his friends. I stared in awe as he announced he wanted to start breakdancing even though he would be the only boy in the class. He didn’t care. He is so sure of who he is. He always has been. He still is.
He died attempting to help a friend. He went out in the middle of the night to help a friend in need, he hit a slippery patch on the road and he was killed instantly. It’s too horrific to write. It makes it real and I still can’t handle that it’s real.
Noah and I made it to Canada. It was the hardest trip I’ve ever chosen to embark on, and I wouldn’t ever have considered not going. The only thing I wish I could change (apart from having previously invented a time machine to change history) is that I wish I could have had more energy and time to hold my beloved Britt in my arms over those two weeks that followed.
Something during those weeks, as a new mother, who already feels so deeply about the world, something in me shifted. Perhaps it shifted from an ignorantly calm and overconfident state to a state of constant awareness of what the world is capable of shattering when I least expect it.
I somehow managed to survive the first three months of motherhood relatively unscathed. This is surprising considering the fact that shortly after Noah took his first breath of air, we entered into a season of deathly fires - fires that killed wildlife in numbers I do not wish to think about. Fires that displaced thousands and tore through beloved homes and fields where memories had been carved for what was assumed to be a predictable eternity. The fires left me nurturing a new born baby amongst some of the most toxic air quality levels, in a small apartment in the heat of Sydney summer.
Although I felt the effects of the fires in my cells and my heart and struggled on many days to handle the monstrosity of the damage, somehow, I still managed to maintain a general level of trust in life and a feeling of immediate safety.
After I found out that Elijah had passed away, something in my nervous system, in my cells, in my blood, in my thoughts changed. I didn’t realise it consciously then, but looking back, that’s when it happened.
A few months later, I was walking along my favourite oceanfront cliffs, pushing Noah in his pram. My Dad called, I answered. He said hello and I could immediately tell that something wasn’t quite right. This is because my Dad never has anything but the purest exuberant, maybe even a bit over the top greeting ready to welcome me. He said he had some really sad news.
I braced myself. I wish I had thought to become aware of feeling my body at that moment. The more I learn about trauma and regulating unbalanced trauma responses, the more I’m recognising the reactions are stored in my tissue, organs - in my energetic body. It’s not my fault that the response is stored here, I didn’t choose it, it happens. My body is trained so beautifully to protect me from threats. It has been doing its duty perfectly.
The words that came out of my Dad’s mouth were, yet again, too incomprehensible to process. My cousin Jason, my beloved, gentle, kind, strong, incredibly wise, generous, highly intelligent and patient cousin had passed away suddenly. I won’t go into more details, and, I was set up yet again for an intense heartbreak that no one should have to, but life asks us to endure.
Life felt a little bit more unsafe.
Less than two months later we found out that one of Patrick’s closest friends, an equally vibrant, sparkly, adventurous, deeply funny and loving human had passed away in a tragic and still unclear circumstance.
There it was once again. This time I was having to sit beside Patrick and watch him endure the pain of loss of someone I know he cared deeply for.
Life felt a little bit more unsafe.
Within these painful losses was Covid. It was August by this stage and we already had to endure six months of lockdown and the loss of a visit from Noah’s Nana, (Patrick’s mother). She was packed and heading to the airport, thrilled to finally meet her now six month old first grandchild when the world closed its doors. We were thrilled at the thought of watching her cuddle Noah in her arms. She couldn’t come. It was okay for a little while but then the waiting started to feel unfair, almost illegal.
It feels unfair that my Dad has yet to squish Noah’s chubby legs. It feels unfair that I haven’t been in a room with both of my parents for over three years, never mind receiving necessary family hugs.
At the time, I was acutely aware that I was feeling the exact same feelings as so much of the rest of the world and so, yet again, I disowned my emotions and pushed them aside.
Flash forward to a year later, I had assumed I could have resumed a feeling of safety. I had assumed that I shouldn’t be repeatedly stalled by a horrible electrical charge running through my skin, called fear. I wish I could say that my anxiety isn’t running rampant on most days, but that wouldn’t be the truth. The truth is, I’ve been living many happy moments and I’ve also been having a really hard time.
In June, I found out I had Skin Cancer. They caught it early and I was fortunate that it hadn’t spread. Suddenly, the beliefs I held around my own resilience and predicted longevity were questioned. I was deeply confronted by the C word.
So here I sit, with many other moments worthy of contemplating and sharing and the details aren’t what’s important, the truth is important. The truth is that today, at times, I feel deeply unsafe. I feel deeply sad that the world is filled with both magnificent beauty and an equal dose of pain. I feel equally excited and terrified about life and the future of our planet and the future of our children. I feel terrified that I could die before I’m done living. I’m terrified of ever losing someone I love again. I’m so, so terrified.
Admittedly, I don’t feel like I’ve been handling the uncontrollable reality of life very well at all. Some days I have perspective and I am filled with presence and laughter. Some days I go for a jog through the bush and every leaf and rock seem like my best friends. Some days I can openly receive the wealth of support from friends and loved ones beside me, and, simultaneously, in some moments I feel truly alone in the vulnerable, surrendering process called accepting reality.
...and here my mind goes again…
As my awareness connects to Britt, and I picture her sitting on her inviting white couch, suddenly gripped by the horrific reality that her soulmate Elijah isn’t sitting beside her; as I think about her pain, I no longer feel like I should be permitted to be feeling unsettled, but I am.
Actually, I must admit what I’m feeling because I have a deep rooted hope that others going through difficult times can find capacity and validation for what they are feeling. I hope they may feel acknowledged and receive compassion regardless of the circumstance. I hope that others know that it’s completely okay to feel both gratitude and not okay simultaneously.
Personally, I’m working on it. It’s a baby-step process. As I enjoy the bubbly, hilarious and exquisite moments life has to offer me, I’m also trying to gently embody the darker ones too. As uncomfortable and confronting as it may be, here’s to healing and everything it requests.
May I develop a capacity for peacefulness again, by learning to accept what is stored in my body today, by listening, holding and breathing into it until it feels safe once again, and by releasing that which I cannot control.
May everyone develop a capacity for peace.
With no further ado, the past two years have absolutely felt like a cloudy full moon night, which brings me to the conclusion that the dark night of the soul, although potentially enlightening and life altering, well, it just plain old sucks and I pray that this ‘life training’ is over very soon!
Signing off,
Lisa xx