Soul Journey to Spiritual Path | Experiencing Dark Night of The Soul

I’ve been getting requests from people asking me “How long does dark night of the soul take?” as well as some other questions. We all experience dark night of the soul differently, but if you end up going through one, there are basics that apply to everyone on some level.

I think dark night of the soul is a process, not a state. It’s a series of experiences over time which occur when we need them most.

I personally went through dark night of the soul over a four year time period. It felt like forever, but looking back it’s clear that I was going through things at my own pace. There were times I felt like I was never going to get out of the pain, and other days when everything seemed fine.

Some people experience these stages in weeks or months, but others take years going through.

If you’re going through a dark night of the soul now, remember that even if you feel alone in your experience, many others have gone before you and many more will follow after you.

What’s the dark night of the soul?

It’s been said that the dark night of the soul is a process. But how long does it take to go through all stages? Is there a standard time frame for this soul journey to spiritual path?

In this video I share my experience with the dark night of the soul and offer some insights, along with a chart for understanding what stage you’re in.

The soul journey to spiritual path: stages of soul transformation

The soul transformation called the dark night of the soul is a process of going through stages of transforming consciousness, of going through dark times on your soul journey to spiritual awakening or ascension.

This soul journey is often misunderstood, so many people get stuck at one of these stages because they don’t realize they just need more time for this phase to be completed successfully. If you feel stuck, know that it’s common and there are ways to move through it successfully with just little more awareness.

In this article, I’d like to share some insights from my own experience and describe what each stage looks like and offer an article with a soul transformation stages, to help you know what stage you’re at and how long it might take.

Dark night of the soul – soul journey: soul transformation stages

The soul dark night is a process that can be described as four main phases or stages of soul transformation on the dark nights journey, which happens on many levels like your soul consciousness or mental level and emotional level.

So we can say there are 4 phases, but they often blend into each other, so we could also say there’s one experience with various layers and levels and various intensities and durations. But usually this whole experience lasts around 3-5 years. It’s not unusual for it to last much longer though, depending on how long it takes for our soul consciousness to integrate and let go of the soul wounding we’re clearing.

The phases or stages of soul transformation on the dark nights journey are: purification, release and reorientation (and integration).

Now I describe each one in more detail:

Dark night of the soul: stage 1: purification

Purification is about letting go of what you don’t need anymore. It’s about releasing fear and self-doubt, anxiety and worry; guilt, shame and blame; addictions such as food addictions, addictions to other people like emotional dependency; addictions to information like addiction to news channels or social media that keep you hooked into fear; any kind of addiction really.

During the soul purification stage, you’ll also be clearing unconscious soul patterning and soul wounding. Soul wounding is when your soul gets hurt in some way, so something happened to you or you were triggered by someone else in a certain way, so this becomes soul wounding. It’s not about blame here; it’s just an observation to own our inner wounds and clear them because it’s what helps us evolve deeper into our soul journey.

Purification can feel quite dark – not only dark night of the soul – but there’s quite a big release of energy going on during this time too. If we let go of fear and self-doubt and addiction, there comes a bit more freedom from being uptight and self-critical, but also the soul is releasing parts of itself that it doesn’t need anymore. So there can be quite a bit of release during this time and soul purification stage.

Dark night of the soul: stage 2: release

During this stage you’re letting go of patterns, the belief systems triggered by these soul wounds; they keep coming up to be released until they are healed. Letting go of these beliefs that no longer serve you means they will dissolve or shift into something else – like habits or conscious mind belief systems that you picked up along your path through life – until eventually there’s nothing left for them to hold onto in any level of your consciousness. But this shift doesn’t happen overnight; it’s a slow process. It can take years, but it depends also on how fast you let go of that soul wounding and soul patterning, so the faster you let go, the sooner it will shift into something else.

Dark night of the soul: stage 3: reorientation

This is often the phase people call dark night of the soul. This is because this stage feels like everything’s falling apart; nothing seems to make sense; darkness comes too; or if there’s no darkness during this time it means we haven’t really done enough soul work yet. So soul work has to be done first before entering this phase because otherwise life may still feel easy and fine at some level (although even healthy grounding will be disrupted), but now the soul is being pushed to its limits, so it’s time for soul work. So this soul work has to be done first.

For me, I had all of these soul wounds mentioned above that needed clearing – emotions or beliefs or patterns – and they came up to be cleared in order for them not to keep triggering me. Because if they are triggered by life circumstances again, then the same pattern will manifest in my life situations because this is how soul wounding works; it affects us physically too, which means our physical body becomes sick when soul wounding keeps getting triggered until we clear out that inner hurt.

This can feel like a re-run of the same situation over and over again until you see what the pattern is and clear it. Once soul wounds are cleared, the soul purification stage will start to feel lighter or more easygoing.

So before reorientation there’s soul purification, which feels very dark and heavy because we’re releasing energy and facing fears to let go of patterns… And then after soul purification comes soul reorientation, which means that we accept what happened in the past; we can look at our life experiences from a broader perspective now; we can see why things happened the way they did and accept them, because this helps us move forward with less fear.

We also get inspired by noticing how everything has been helping us evolve in different ways even though it felt like it was all going wrong when soul wounding kept getting triggered. So soul reorientation feels easier once you’re through the soul purification stage.

Dark night of the soul: stage 4: soul reintegration

If there’s no dark night of the soul, then there isn’t any real soul work done yet because soul wounding keeps triggering unconsciously and keeps taking over our lives without us being aware of it or free from it. But when soul wounding is healed on all levels of consciousness, which means your physical body too, then you enter this phase called soul reintegration where there can still be a bit more fear but it’s less dark because everything comes up to be seen in order for us to own what happened in our life experiences on all levels of consciousness, not just soul. So this is soul integration on all levels, on all dimensions of our soul.

And then we feel like the soul has integrated on every level and we can finally relax because we can trust ourselves and life more; we know what we’re doing here; we trust that it’s done; we don’t need to keep fighting our fears anymore (there’s no fight left in us for the things that were causing fear) and it feels like a relief to be free from these inner limitations which were keeping us separate from others who weren’t holding them either, or keeping us separate from new experiences that don’t trigger old wounds. At this stage everything is flowing by itself, so there’s nothing to get attached to because everything just keeps changing. So soul reintegration feels lighter.

It doesn’t feel like everything is heavy anymore; there’s no more heaviness, only lightness and peace of soul knowing that inner soul wounding has been healed on all levels. If you’re in this soul integration stage then the dark night of the soul is done with until next time it needs to come up again, or if there’s no darkness during this time it means we haven’t really done enough soul work yet.

This is the journey of your soul

So when you go through the dark night of the soul spiritual awakening process, which can take years… The dark night of the soul stages are basically these 4 main phases:

– soul purification (feeling heavy because all our fears are coming up to be seen so we can release the energy of soul wounding and heal on all levels of consciousness)

– soul reorientation (feeling heavy and dark because we’re taking a look at our life experiences and soul wounds on all levels of consciousness so we don’t have to keep running from them unconsciously, which had been causing soul wounding through feeling separate from others who aren’t holding those soul woundings either or feelings of not belonging anywhere or anything; instead we can see what has happened and accept it as part of the soul journey so we can move forward in life with less fear)

– soul integration (Letting go of everything; we feel like we’ve done everything that needed to be done; this is soul integrating on all levels and dimensions, soul purifying; soul reorienting; soul integrating; it’s done with soul wounding, even though there can still be a bit of fear)

– soul reintegration (feeling lighter because soul wounding has been healed on all levels of consciousness so we have more trust in life, which makes us want to go beyond our comfort zone and try new things while knowing that whatever comes up will just be part of the soul journey, or what’s here to be learnt about ourselves.)

The dark night of the soul isn’t exactly endured by feeling heavy – you might have felt lightness during this process too because parts of it are simply being seen for what they are instead of being unconsciously held. So it comes down to the actual soul wounding and soul wounding patterns, if there’s any soul wounding in our life experience. When we start taking a look at soul wounding experiences on all levels of consciousness – soul, mind, body and spirit (4 levels) then we can heal on all levels of consciousness too.

If you’re feeling heavy during the dark night of the soul it might mean that some soul wounds are still outside your awareness. This is where inner child work comes into play because when we take a closer look at our life experiences while our inner child or children are seen and accepted by us while they were going through those life events with us, we can heal on all levels: soul level; mental level; physical level; spiritual level: 4 dimensions/levels altogether

Why does it happen?

That soul reintegration stage is the lightness soul integration brings. It doesn’t feel so heavy anymore, it feels like everything is flowing by itself – there’s no more heaviness, only peace of soul knowing that inner soul wounding has been healed on all levels.

Let’s say soul purification was about our fears coming up to be seen so we can release the energy of soul wounding and heal on all levels of consciousness; soul reorientation was taking a look at our life experiences and soul wounds on all levels of consciousness to see what happened instead of running away unconsciously from those soul wounding experiences which had caused soul wounding through feeling separate from others who weren’t holding those soul woundings either or feelings of not belonging anywhere or anything.

How long does it last?

It’s possible to say soul reintegration is soul integration, soul reorientation and soul purification with the soul wounding gone too. Soul integration might seem like it lasts forever though; even soul reintegration will come up again on some level or another – that’s life here to be learnt about ourselves. It doesn’t need to stay in the dark night of the soul stage because if we’re ready for soul healing then soul integration can happen anytime!

Spiritual awakening process.

But how long does it take to go through all stages? I find it difficult putting an exact timeline on this process because timing depends highly on each individual (the type of inner child work you do; what your fears are; what your issues are; what soul wounding patterns; soul reintegration and soul integration feeling like etc.)

What I can say is, as soon as soul purification happens, you might notice right away how your heaviness disappears. This heaviness that had been there before soul purification might have come from soul separation or soul reorientation/soul integration or a combo of both. So if you’re ready to take a look at yourself more deeply on all levels of consciousness then soul purification can happen within a few days usually.

Can it be avoided?

Some people do their inner child work so they don’t have to go through dark night of the soul stages because it’s part of soul healing – this is why we call spiritual awakening process soul healing. Soul purification is soul reorientation/ soul integration on all levels of consciousness with soul wounding gone too. Soul reintegration is soul integration, soul orientation and soul purification – it’s a matter of what feels right to you on whatever level you’re at in this process.

Is there any hope?

This phase can be a long one if we haven’t had enough inner work done yet without becoming an emotional/mental wreck which was the case for me while experiencing dark night of the soul stages! It can take years or even decades going through these stages if we haven’t practiced self-care while going through soul reorientation or soul purification. That’s why I recommend self-care practices like meditation, yoga, journaling and anything that feels good for you. The soul reorientation/ soul purification phase can go on for years or even decades if we don’t take care of ourselves during soul reintegration too – I’m talking about using our mind to see the soul reintegration opportunities instead of calling it quits because life is just too difficult.

But if we can embrace soul reintegration as something that’s happening rather than think of it as an experience that has taken over us then soul healing can happen sooner than later. But what I have also found is, many people are afraid to face their fears during soul reorientation stage because they might feel so alone! That was my case doing inner child work because there were no soul healing communities online or offline (that I knew of) while soul reorientation was happening to me.

But soul healing can happen for ourselves and others because if we’ve already done soul reintegration then soul integration, soul orientation and soul purification all might be behind us too! So the dark night of the soul stage has happened already but it’s difficult putting an exact timeline on this process even with our guides around us because timing depends highly on each individual- the type of inner child work done; what one’s fears are; what soul wounding patterns still exist etc.

How can we get out of a Dark Night more quickly?

It’s been said that the dark night of the soul is a process so I find it difficult putting an exact timeline on this process because timing depends highly on each individual- the type of inner child work done; what one’s fears are; what soul wounding patterns still exist etc.

What I can say is, as soon as soul purification happens, you might notice right away how your heaviness disappears. This heaviness that had been there before soul purification might have come from soul separation or soul reorientation/soul integration or a combo of both.

So if you’re ready to take a look at yourself more deeply on all levels of consciousness then soul purification can happen within a few days usually – but not always! And it could be years later with soul healing on all levels of consciousness first before dark night of the soul stages are done with too. But what I can also say is, soul reintegration and soul reorientation/ soul integration don’t necessarily feel like dark night of the soul stages or feeling completely overwhelmed trying to figure out soul integration for yourself!

Soul reintegration and soul reorientation/ soul integration feels like soul orientation to me which is soul purification + soul integration that has already happened. So I’ve experienced soul reintegration, soul reorientation and soul orientations through inner child work with each one feeling completely different from the other – an emotional process but not necessarily dark night of the soul stages.

Conclusion

There is a “die off”process and “rebirth process”. This article is for people who may not know what is happening to them and what is important to go during this process.

The soul journey to spiritual path can be painful process, many people call this stage “the dark night of the soul”. This process can last between few months to few years.

I went through this soul journey to spiritual path and I was frightened and alone while going through it, but I will show you how to avoid feeling that way while you travel on your own soul journey.

The dark night of the soul (spiritual awakening process) is not easy process, however, it is very rewarding. It can affect you in so many ways. Some people are more affected physically by being and feeling extreme exhaustions, other people going though extreme pain on a soul level.

These dark nights of the soul can be more intense than they need to be if we aren’t prepared for them. When the soul journey gets tough, many people run away from their spirituality all together or allow themselves to get stuck in fear and self-doubt which only prolongs the soul’s journey and stalls your personal growth and development.

Feel free to connect if you have any questions.