Existential Inquiry

I want to include this section for anyone who may be suffering through a period of desolate spiritual confusion, overbearing doubt, existential heaviness, or inner disorientation. Some of the other sections on this page may not resonate with you right now—and that is completely understandable. When people are moving through periods of deep psychological or spiritual darkness, philosophy itself can sometimes feel distant or insufficient. My hope is simply that these next few paragraphs offer a small sense of companionship, perspective, or steadiness during a difficult passage.

At times, human beings pass through periods in which previously stable structures of meaning, identity, belief, purpose, or orientation begin to dissolve. What once felt certain may suddenly feel difficult to trust. What once brought meaning may no longer do so in the same way, or at all. Questions that once felt abstract may suddenly become visceral:

What is my purpose?
What if existence itself is fundamentally absurd?
What if I have built my life around meanings I no longer believe in?
What if I no longer know who I am, or how to move forward?

Such periods have sometimes been described as “dark nights of the soul" or existential crises.

A dark night of the soul is distinct from ordinary sadness, circumstantial grief, or everyday uncertainty, though it may include elements of all three. It is often experienced as a prolonged confrontation with groundlessness, existential uncertainty, spiritual absence, psychological upheaval, inner contradiction, or the collapse of previously sustaining forms of meaning and identity. At times the experience may feel unbearably painful, lonely, frightening, or emotionally and psychologically overwhelming.

Yet for many people, a spiritual dark night—which will likely last much longer than a single night—may eventually become an opening into deeper honesty, discernment, existential maturation, spiritual transformation, or a more grounded relationship with reality itself. Along the way, individuals may confront dimensions of themselves they have spent years avoiding, suppressing, intellectualizing, or attempting to transcend prematurely: fears, attachment, self-deception, selfishness, manipulative tendencies, dependency, distorted perception, trauma, or what Jungian psychology would describe as the shadow. 
 
For some people, a dark night of the soul is not merely a crisis, but a form of initiation. Mystics, contemplatives, shamans, healers, philosophers, artists, and others drawn toward deeper forms of truth have long described passing through periods of profound dissolution, uncertainty, symbolic death, and existential confrontation. As spiritual teacher Caroline Myss has suggested, the path of the mystic demands an extraordinary capacity to bear the truth, requiring detachment from the illusions of the physical world in order to perceive symbolically. 

Myss describes the path of the mystic as involving lessons in loss, disillusionment, suffering, powerlessness, and descent that gradually transform one’s relationship to meaning, power, compassion, and reality. She writes that those who pass through such descents may eventually become more capable of accompanying others through darkness with genuine humility, love, and understanding. In this sense, descent into the underworld becomes an initiation through direct encounter with the realities of disillusionment and existential fragility.

The 16th-century Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross was the first to refer to this passage as a "dark night of the soul." He believed that because so few people are capable of enduring direct contact with Heaven, God first strengthens and prepares the soul through periods of emptiness, surrender, longing, and uncertainty before deeper union with the divine becomes possible—the ultimate gift of experiencing Heaven on Earth.

I sometimes return to older contemplative or poetic texts that offer steadiness without denying the reality of suffering. One piece I have long appreciated is Desiderata by Max Ehrmann, especially these passages: 

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here... And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should...And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Not everyone undergoing existential or spiritual transformation will experience a dark night. But for those who do, it can be important to remember that periods of profound uncertainty, emptiness, feeling lost, or psychological unraveling are not necessarily signs that something has gone wrong. Sometimes they are part of a deeper process of psychological, existential, or spiritual reorganization that cannot be rushed, bypassed, or prematurely resolved, only gradually moved through with courage, honesty, self-compassion, and, when possible, meaningful support.

The dark night of the soul is transient, as all of existence is.