What is The Dark Night of The Soul?

Do you know what the dark night of the soul is? What about upper limiting?

Today I am sharing a bit more raw and candid conversation about the dark night of the soul, what it is and also about upper limiting.

One of my favorite poems by Marriane Williamson says, 
" Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. 
 Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. 
 It is our light, not our darkness
 That most frightens us. 

We ask ourselves
 Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
 Actually, who are you not to be? 
You are a child of God. 

Your playing small 
 Does not serve the world. 
 There's nothing enlightened about shrinking 
 So that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, 
 As children do. 
 We were born to make manifest 
 The glory of God that is within us. 

 It's not just in some of us; 
 It's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
 We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
 As we're liberated from our own fear,
 Our presence automatically liberates others."


Want to work with me? Are you ready to put down what isn't serving? Let's chat. 
Email me aj@amandajoyco.com

Let's stay in touch!

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:01

Welcome, welcome. Welcome to my podcast leaving religion and those we leave behind. I'm your host, Amanda J. Loveland, and I am thrilled to be sitting here with you today. We did, I didn't have a podcast drop last week, I am so sorry. And sometimes that's just life, right? The life has been this beautiful, beautiful orchestra orchestration of Oh, my goodness, so many beautiful things. And I wanted to I'm just on the heels of one of my trainings that I just recently completed and am now board certified as an NLP practitioner. And in a few months, I'll be master NLP practitioner. You know, it's fascinating, as we lean into these different trainings, and these different, you know, whether it's a retreat, or a class or a book, or there's these podcasts or other podcasts, there's always these opportunities for us to learn more and more about ourselves. And in that learning, sometimes custom come some really hard, hard truths. And especially when we step out of religion, we, we often think that things are going to get easier. And the reality is, is they often get a lot harder. And the reason why is because you are starting to question and unravel all of those pieces within you. And as you do that it forces you to really look within of why did I choose into this? Why did I choose into these different beliefs, and how am I showing up in the world. And when you start doing that, you can and often will experience something called the dark night of the soul. And this is something that I have been through a few times most of us have been through whether you recognize that's what it was, or that's what it was called or not. But this is those places within us that feel like we have hit rock bottom. And it is painful, and it is deep. And it burns. And I was recently in this class that we just had, we had a really in depth conversation about dark night of the soul. And I've been sitting with that, since this conversation, and then especially today, as they felt the call to sit down and have this conversation with you all in leaning into these emotions today. For me, personally, I'm actually quite emotional, I've got a lot of emotions up. And I am grateful that I have a different relationship with what it means about me and all what I mean by that. I'll dive into that here and a little bit. But a lot of these emotional places within us are raw, they're hard to talk about, we want someone to save us. We want someone to rescue us when we're in pain. And it brings up a lot of that self talk that self doubt that not good enough. What's wrong with me, that kind of thinking. And if you have ever had any kind of depression, or any experiences similar to that the shadows, the heaviness, the heaviness of the emotions can feel quite frightening because they can consume. And one of the things that I was reminded about was the importance of letting you go all the way in and letting those emotion emotions burn, and burn through you. And what's fascinating about our journeys, and the things that I know to be true, and that I have learned and if this isn't resonate with you great, as Tom Kenyon always says in his books, imagine a box next to you. And if something doesn't resonate, put it aside in that box and hear that is the advice I'd like to give you now. What if part of this journey in life is actually to learn what we're not, so that we can know more and more of who we are. And when we get to face those places within us of what we are not, it can be painful. And what the only way to really allow for those belief systems those emotions to leave us is to let them burn through. There's a beautiful process of alchemy, which is changing you know, with with metal, it's changing one metal into another into gold. And it's through forging in the fire through burning and through high high high heat and being left in that fire. And then you have the process of alchemy. And what if the dark night of the soul what if part of what you're going through part of emotions is really to allow yourself to sit in the emotions and 12 Allow yourself to be curious to fill it all the way and let it burn out. And when it processes through completely then it's done then there's an alchemical process within you that allows for that peace to be healed and allows for something new to come in. when something dies something gets rebirth it happens every time always always in our healing when something is gets put to rest a belief an old thought pattern an old behavior something new gets to come in I was watching a beautiful guys series on Samadhi and one of the things that they had said and in an I can't remember which which episode it was, but that is a belief that when emotions are not fully felt in an experience then that memory gets lodged are locked in the subconscious mind and until those emotions are fully felt will release and that was really interesting to me especially as I'm I was during this was during my training with NLP which NLP is neuro linguistic programming. And NLP is about bringing the subconscious conscious, so bring those pieces within us in the subconscious mind that really are what are deriving our, it's what's creating our reality, and we're unaware of it. And bringing that into the conscious mind. This was one of those pieces that I thought it was fascinating. That was, you know, the synchronicity of it. And speaking to that, and then bringing the emotions as a part of it. What if some of these old emotions that are coming through as you're moving through a dark night of the soul is actually just old emotions asking to be witnessed, felt expressed and moved out because emotions are just energy in motion. And they get to be Felts. And they get to activate the cells, they get to have a purging out of the cells be cleansed through that alchemical process, and be released. A beautiful friend of mine brought this into my awareness. Not long ago, maybe, maybe it's been a year or two now. But when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, that story always I struggled with, I don't know about you guys, but I struggled with Jesus and the story that was presented and His sacrifice for our sins, they died for our sins. And this, this mean, to worship Him on the cross always bothered me, I never identified with it, I could never get up in my congregation and bear my testimony about the atonement. It just never and never sunk in, and I never quite understood why. And I, for me, now, looking back, I believe it's because I didn't, I just didn't, the story didn't feel true period. And I, with my beautiful friend, she was sharing with me that what the Garden of Gethsemane was actually just a dark night of the soul for Jesus. And part of what he was here to do, which was to transcend death, to actually fulfill his purpose of going through an alchemical process, to then overcome the physical body overcome death, and then to have the physical body and more of a light body to be able to move through those depths of his internal Hill, his dark night of the soul. And if God would have come in and stepped in, as he, you know, as Jesus is pleading with God to come in, and God steps away even further, was that not actually out of love of Him knowing that his son Jesus could go through this, that he could go through the most excruciating pain so that he could transmute those energies have the alchemy go through his physical body, as part of preparation for the next steps and what he was here to do. He showed us what this process is. And God showed us to that if we intervene with a loved one who is in this process of darkness soul, if we tried to go heal them, or take, take it off of their plate, and actually is doing them a disservice. Because if they don't move through it, then they'll get to do it at another time. And I don't know about you, but for me, if I'm gonna, if this is what I'm here to do of transmuting different parts of myself, I would rather get it done and over with, even if it is the most excruciating pain. I'd rather dive all the way into it, and come out on the other side, because you and I both know that when we go through the depths of hell when we go into the shadows, and if you don't know this, I'm here to tell you that on the other side of that is the most beautiful experiences it's expansion when we start seeing the depths of where we can go. We also then have The high or hires can get higher. And it's a beautiful, beautiful experience to go through, even when it's painful, in pain is beauty and in pain is understanding and learning that only through that pain do we get to really experience. And the truth is we are not our emotions. Again, energy or emotions are just energy in motion. It's just an experience for us to dive through and to feel what needs to be feel felt. And oftentimes, those emotions are there to allow us to witness something about ourselves. And I was quite surprised this last week, as you know, wherever you're out on your journey, we're always progressing. We're always learning, we're always growing. And I was taken back this week for me with having to look getting to look at another layer of some of the trauma that I carried through my relationships. I was surprised actually at some old emotions that were coming up to the surface to be looked at to be Felts. And then to be cleared. That one of the things that I saw as far as the patterns in my relationship, or is that every single relationship, not every single one, but especially in my marriage, my former marriages, every single person I attract into my life was deceitful somehow, they were not honest. And in my work, and what I do, we are always at cause for what we're creating in our reality. Now this can look like the reason when I say at cause, usually, and what happens is that there's some sort of a belief that we're carrying, that's creating and attracting whatever it is into our realities. So as I'm laying in bed one night, and my heart is heavy, and I'm feeling into the emotions, without judgment, and just curious and feeling and allowing to go in, and starting to see the patterns laid out in front of me, I had to ask myself, Am I dishonest? Where am I dishonest in my life? Where have I been? Not true to my word. And that was painful, that was painful to really look at, and to go and ask that question about myself. Because if that didn't exist within me, I would not have attracted these partners. If if abuse or the idea that I could be abused wasn't even within me, I wouldn't attract abusive partners. And one of my partners was very abusive. And of course, when things pop into our realities, as they do, they're there to show us something. And this week, and that day, in particular man that I have a bunch of old things pop. And the humbling piece about that, too, is here I am someone that has established herself as an expert in relationships. And I have written a book as far as assisting anyone and finding more and more peace and harmony in their relationships, and how to heal in your relationships. And I have a relationship course that dives into all of these aspects as well. And so when this came up, it was humbling for me, because, man, I guess there's more learning that I get to do. And the truth is, is I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful to constantly learn, and to be reminded that you don't know what you don't know until you do. And the layers of our healing the layers of our psyche, and our layers of our emotions, and the layers of our trauma. And the layers of the life that we have chosen to live are deep. And so when these layers come up to look at, it's nothing to be frustrated at, even though it's definitely a very easy thing to get frustrated at it when you have to revisit an experience over and over again, or you get to it can be easier. And this is one of the reasons why I love NLP is because our healing can be easy. Even if you get to go revisit that experience, whatever it was multiple times. There's different levels of learning, there's different levels of asking yourself, How do I feel? You know, what is it that? Why am I feeling unworthy in this area of my life in this area of my life? And what's the learning here for me to gain so that I can let go of this and then move forward? And what if we are here just to remove the layers to unbind what gets to be unbound? And to continue to shed these veils that have been placed upon us for whatever reason? I believe that there's a big choice in it in some way. And what if it's so that we can know more and more of who we are so that we can become more godlike in this life? So We can really know the truth of who we are. Because there's such richness in going through the shadows and going through that internal hell. There's a richness in the success, the achievements, the accomplishments in life. And going through the other side. Now, here's the kicker, when, and something that has been fascinating for me to witness and experience, especially this last year, is there's also something called upper limits. And when we're up, or we're upper leveling, and when we have dark night of the souls, it's because we're looking at a lot of our there's a lot of different reasons that will throw you in the Dark Knight of Solon often happens, like I said, when we have stepped out of religion, and you really get to go into those places within you that needs to be brought to light and need to be felt and expressed and witnessed, and to be let go. There's also this place of Upper Limiting, where you are now in a place you are experiencing more and more of your greatness in this life, and it scares the hell out of you. And it also can bring up emotions, it also can bring up insecurities, fears, it reminds me of that Marianne Williamson quote, and I'm going to botch it. But it essentially says that we are more afraid of our greatness than we are of our weakness of our shadows of those places that we are comfortable with, because we get really comfort, comfortable in our misery. And our subconscious mind, if we're not aware of it will continue to choose experiences that will continue us a looping into the same cycles, because that has kept you safe. Our subconscious mind, it's only if you think about it, our subconscious, our unconscious is what keeps our blood pumping through our body. It's what you don't have to think about breathing, you do you breathe, your body, your blood is costly moving, there's all sorts of things that your body is doing, that's part of the unconscious mind, that keeps you alive. And so these programs that are embedded within you are also doing the same thing is kept you alive. And that's the main goal of the subconscious. And so when you start becoming aware that holy cow, I keep looping, it's not a place to get frustrated or angry. It's just to bring awareness and to find different resources that can assist you. And unbinding and unwinding that program, bringing it to the conscious bringing it to the light, and allowing for a new belief in a new thought pattern to come in. I believe it's only 10 seconds that it takes to create a new neural pathway, which is is beautiful when you're ready to create something new. It's also frustrating when you create something you don't want. And our brains are just a fascinating, fascinating thing. Our realities are a fascinating, fascinating thing. And today, I find myself in a place of sitting in my emotions, as I'm leaning in further and further into more of my business, the growth that I'm experiencing, and I am hitting some upper limits. And those upper limits those, that Upper Limiting place can also feel painful. But it is a part of where our growth edges get to be felt. And we can either choose to resist them and go back down and spiral down and loop down or we can choose to lean in even further and break out. And I don't know about you, but I am choosing a life to where I'm going to continue and to lean in. And continue to learn the things that I get to learn and share the things that I get to share so that I can assist myself and others in finding more and more of who I am and becoming more and more of who I am and leaning into my spiritual center and leaning into the truth of all I am so that I can experience the fullness of what I am and who I am and what I'm here to do and my purpose and all the things on this earth. That driving force behind us me of experiencing our fullness is is deep and powerful and beautiful. So I felt the call to share all this with you in a place that feels quite humbling and vulnerable for me to share. But here we are. And if you're in any of these places in your life, know that you're not alone. Know that you do get to fill it and do your best not to try to find someone to fix you Not to try and find someone to take away the pain, you can very much find someone that can assist you and coaching you through it, of holding you to your best of knowing the potential of all that you are assisting you in reframing what you're experiencing, so that you can move through it yourself and feel the fullness of what you get to feel so that you can come out on the other side, and have so much beauty. There's also beautiful mantras, you know, when your Upper Limiting, reminding yourself that you're safe. And reminding yourself that yep, I do show up doing the things each day to show up for yourself. And sometimes showing up for our self is taking a rest it is taking a bath, it is doing those things that we really, really need to do for ourselves to nourish those places within. But I have found in my journey, I used to be really good at finding excuses to not show up, to not do the things that I had committed to. And as I have moved through those places within me of how important it is to show up for myself, I have conditioned and trained my unconscious mind that I am safe within myself because I do show up, I do take those steps that I committed to myself that I would do I do work out I do eat cleaner I do. The emails, the podcast, the the client sessions, I do those those things. And that creates a lot of safety within the self. And you don't realize that we don't realize that we're constantly showing our subconscious mind if we can, if we're safe within ourselves or not. Did you know that Did you know when you don't show up for yourself uncertain things. The you're showing yourself that you can't trust who you are, you can't trust yourself. And that's huge. That's huge. So today, I invite you, wherever you are, in your journey, to have a little bit more softness with yourself today. And to ask yourself, what is a baby step that I can take and furthering the goal, the end the goals, and accomplishments and achievements that I want to experience in this life? What is a little step that I can take today. And in these places, it's always a good reminder of how important portant it is to have the daily practices of meditation. I've saya silencing the mind of quieting the mind of going into those safe places within us to doing those guided meditations and allowing ourselves to receive light. Meditation for me has been one of the biggest gifts of my life, is why I can't sleep I do several recorded meditations that I offer. Through my website as well as guided journeys. They have been one of the biggest gifts for me and for my clients. Because when we sit in the richness and the deepness of that silence within us and it takes a minute to get to that place of silence and it's a practice, you start to become more and more aware of how much you're able to receive and receive from the unknown receive from source God, whatever you want to call it. And one of my favorite favorite things to do is just to sit in stillness, and allow myself to witness and asks for divine light, golden, refined Saamy. To pour in from God from source from the sun, into the top of my through my crown, the top of my head, and to be washed all the way through me. Moving down through the central column, the nervous system, nourishing the nerve endings, calming the neural pathways, the body, the cells, the tissues and moving all the way down through my feet. Feeling that liquid light, that nourishing light that just in five minutes, 10 minutes, allows for my nervous system, my cells, my body, my soul, my heart, my spirit to be received, nourished, held supported, and cleansed. That's one of my favorite things to do. So if you don't know where to start in meditation, I invite you just to start and that little visualization that I just spoke to with what I love to do, is it really easy practice. If you need your mind To focus on something while you're meditating, do that. Do that and focus on your breath. Our breath is one of the most beautiful tools that we have by simply just inhaling in through the nose and exhaling out through the mouth, and allows you to slow down. And it invites you to connect with all the things around you, connecting with your own heartbeat. And if you don't know this, there's a heartbeat that the Earth has. And you can feel it when you start to slow down. When you come to the breath, you can feel the heartbeat of the earth, and all things around you. Because we are connected to all things. So that is my invitation for you today. Where can you step more into stillness in your life? And what is that baby step that you can take to get you further along your path to finding more and more of who you are and what you're wanting in this life. I have to right now, as of right now, I have two spots open for my three month intensive program. And this is for those that are really ready to have change in your life. And this is a $3,000 commitment to yourself, of leaning in, of looking at your programs, we do a lot of NLP, we do a six hour breakthrough session where we get to really, really dive in to see where your programs are, and then move through processes that allow you to release them. And then we meet every week, we meet every week to assist you in going after your goals and assists you in those processes of what the next steps are so that you can have more and more of what you're wanting in the world. Our world is constantly reflecting back to us what our internal belief systems are. So what is your world reflecting to you today? Be curious. And notice. If it's something you're not wanting, then you get to change something within you to start reflecting to be able to have that reflection out outside of you. So if you're interested in one of these spots, reach out to me you can reach out through my email AJ at Amanda Joy co.com. And connect with me there. And as always know you're not alone in your journey. Know that we're all in this together. And you are an amazing, amazing human being that is here to do beautiful, beautiful things. So I hope that you lean forward today and reach for the stars and those stars exists within you. Sending you all so much love