We’ve all been through hard times in our lives when it felt like all was lost. Any last remnant of positivity, of hope, seemed to have been sucked from our bodies — and we had no clue how we were going to pick ourselves up off of the proverbial (or literal) floor.
“I have spent most of my life going through deep, dark nights of the soul,” says Juniper Stokes, a shamanic practitioner, spiritual coach, and DailyOM course creator. “I have been what looks like depressed from the outside so many times, but in essence, this state is a real spiritual condition where you lose touch with your connection with the light.”
So why do we experience these seasons of darkness — and how can we move forward? It turns out these periods in our lives hold the keys to deep healing and expansion.
Interested in learning more? Check out Find Light in the Darkness: Overcome Hopelessness.
Having navigated periods of darkness time and time again, Stokes knows what it’s like to feel separate from her spiritual nature — and how to find illumination once again.
“I’ve gone through those times where life and existence have felt so pointless, I didn’t know how to go on, each time entering into this very dark cocoon,” she says. “I now know it’s temporary. I know it’s an initiation and an invitation to cultivate new skills, strategies, and strengths to heal, so that I can emerge more whole and powerful than before. I’ve experienced this so many times that I have become gifted at guiding other people through this process in a way that welcomes it as a natural part of life, instead of something to be pushed aside or fixed in some way.”
Today, Stokes supports countless others through her own East-meets-West approach to healing, blending years of shamanic training, coaching, Taoist alchemy, yoga and pranayama (breathwork), Jungian thought and archetypes, and more into her work.
Although one might be quick to characterize a period of darkness as depression, Stokes says it’s more nuanced than it appears. “It is a true sense of disconnection from purpose, of inner fragmentation and confusion, of real doubt around the goodness of life and the meaning of life in connection with spirit.”
You might even be aware that you’re in the dark — and you might want to get out of the dark — but nothing seems to work, she adds. “The strategies you’ve tried before aren’t meeting you where you are, and that’s because you are being asked to grow into new, even more impactful skills and strategies to carry you forward.”
Although dark times can feel scary, Stokes says they can be reframed into sacred rites of passage. “Darkness is an initiation, an invitation into greater wholeness,” she says. “And if we can open our hearts to it, I think we can experience these periods in a more gentle way.”
Ultimately, embracing periods of darkness can be an invitation to uncover what’s causing us dissonance within, so we can come more into alignment with who we really are and step back into the light, feeling more empowered, Stokes explains.
Yes, it can be tempting to resist curling up into that dark cocoon — and Stokes says that’s okay. “If you want to hole up in bed, do it for a bit. Let yourself binge on a Netflix marathon while you don’t shower for four days — and then you move. You embrace the truth of the moment, which is that you are in the dark. It’s meant to be a slow movement, and it’s okay to rest.”
As you relax into your journey and allow it to unfold — and maybe even put on Rihanna’s “Dancing in the Dark” for good measure — you get to uncover its deeper purpose, Stokes says. “When we welcome the sadness, we get to figure out the message. What is it inviting us to discover about ourselves, about our beliefs? What hidden gifts is it helping us unearth?”
It’s more than possible to turn darkness into light — and Stokes says having a tool kit can make the journey feel a whole lot gentler. “We need tools for every level when we’re approaching these really deep, dark times,” she says. Some of her favorite healing techniques include yoga nidra, meditations, journaling, plant medicine, and working with elders, myths, and stories.
With that in mind, Stokes shares how the dark periods in your life can actually illuminate your path forward.
“All of us have parts of ourselves and gifts to give this world that are so powerful that they can seem scary,” Stokes says. “This dark time is really an invitation to find our inner gifts that we’ve kept hidden from ourselves.” And possibly share them with those around us as well.
After all, we aren’t meant to live in this dark space for long, she says — but rather to spend our days shining our light in the world. But first, we need to orient toward our true north by acknowledging and shedding light on our ways of self-sabotaging, the resistance we feel, and the fears we have.
Periods of darkness can feel like someone has pressed a big pause button on your life. According to Stokes, the purpose of this pause is to help us heal anything in our past that is no longer serving us.
“One thing that can really bring people to the dark is when we go, go, go,” she says. “We look at life as linear, and we just keep going and going, and we don’t stop to integrate our losses and our grief and the big changes and initiations we all experience in life. If we don’t take the time on our own to do that, the dark makes us. And ultimately, it’s a healing act to really face our grief, the strength of our emotions, and the traumas of our past, and bring them into the light for healing.” After all, we can’t heal what we can’t feel.
Research literature continually links a chaotic childhood to adulthood woes, including poor mental and physical health and even decreased longevity, reinforcing the importance of healing old wounds. For example, one recent study found that adolescents’ perceived level of household chaos affected their future mental health and behaviors.
“The darkness really gives us space to invite the parts of ourselves that we’ve rejected or hidden to come home,” Stokes says. We can slowly, gingerly acknowledge our “shadow” side, let it be out in the open, and eventually embrace it.
In so doing, Stokes says we’re becoming more whole — and more of who we are — in the periods of darkness that eventually bring us into deeper self-understanding and self-actualization.
Part of what happens in the darkness is an inner examination of the “untruths” in our life, Stokes tells us. “It’s a time to recognize the lies that society has told us, our cultures have told us, and the ones we’ve told ourselves,” she explains.
For example, Stokes suggests asking yourself: “What are the untruths that are causing dissonance in my system?”
She says, “As we acknowledge these, face them, and then rewrite them so that they are true, this brings about our light.”
In other words, by understanding what no longer feels good to us, we discover what we truly want — and what does feel good and true right now. And while these answers are unique to each individual, they’re not impossible to uncover and honor.
There comes a point in the darkness when acceptance of where you are starts to emerge. “I think you develop a lot of compassion and the ability to be empathetic with others,” Stokes says. “This helps you navigate the world from a place of greater love. And when you navigate the world from a place of greater love, you actually share more of your light in the world as well.”
Not surprisingly, more compassion for self and others offers a myriad of health benefits. According to a recent study, women who practiced self-compassion had a decreased risk for heart disease, regardless of their blood pressure, insulin resistance, or cholesterol level. And more research found that after doing two weeks of compassion meditation, subjects experienced less distress in the face of others’ suffering.
Life is meant to flow in cycles, Stokes notes, and when we embrace the darkness as natural, we are embracing our true nature.
“Our true nature is cyclical, just as everything in nature is cyclical,” she says. “We have our seasons, the seasons of summer, spring, winter, and fall — and the natural ebb and flow of vitality of harvest, rest, and letting go.”
When we make space for the darkness, we allow in the full experience of life, and in turn, we experience greater well-being.
There’s no denying that periods of darkness can be an intense place to be, but they can also help you build more inner power and strength than you ever thought possible.
With supportive tools by your side, and the courage to lean into them, you can ultimately navigate to a new place of self-understanding, self-compassion, and enhanced connection to yourself, others, and the world around you.
