At times the veil of darkness can be so thick that it’s hard to know where to take the next step. I’ve been back from the monastery for 2 weeks, and it’s been a beautiful and immensely disorienting short period of time.

The beauty is coming through in the community of people that I get to be around, the 1:1’s, the rooted connections, spacious mornings meditating outside, long walks and frequent journeys into the city.

The disorienting component has a feeling tone of being perpetually behind, tired, unsure, and in some ways, stuck - like tires spinning in sand.

The disorientation is all in relation to purpose, work, career, and how I am showing up in these realms through the lens of service. “Am I actually providing value?”, “Is this useful?”, “Am I wasting my time?”, “Can I even do this?”

Hello darkness, my old friend. This isn’t an evil darkness, but dark darkness, blackness, peak night on a new moon. Emptiness, the unborn, the unseen, the unknown, the unstruck, the void.

I know this space well, it’s amongst the most uncomfortable states of being and one that we collectively try to avoid with the mightiest of our mights.

To me, this state is one of unsureness, where I don’t exactly know what I “should” be doing in a given moment which often results in me feeling drained. Drained because I can no longer see the path and am acting like I can. The momentum from the day is carrying into the night.

Rejection, numbing, avoiding, and looking away, for me is the most obvious form and easiest to notice because the behavior changes are the most stark (hello over-socializing, Instagram, etc - pick your poison).

Forcing light comes through as trying to create states to get out of the darkness or acting as if I were in peak clarity; this can be as simple as over caffeinating or working a ton without direction. I drain my energy through this and it manifests as lethargy, as frustration, as bitterness.

Panicking, or thrashing is the biggest drain and it comes through as “something is wrong”, “something is off”, “something has to change”. It is in this state that I entertain massive life shifts, or “burning it all down”, or giving up.

In order to be with the darkness, I need to not wish it were otherwise. Just as the sun rises and sets - so too the moon will rise and set. Simply put, there is no problem - other than the ones I create when I want something other than what is.

So, until then, I move slow, I make space for what is asking for space (like writing this piece), and trust that this is all in the direction I am to be headed. This is a time to plant seeds and tend to the soil, not to seek fruit.

Darkness isn’t sexy, it’s not comfortable, it’s not easy to be in, but I have seen enough times that what comes out of it is always worth my energy, attention, and time.

And so for now, here we are.

Thank you for reading. May this spark something in you or bring some sort of comfort during your periods of not knowing which way is up.