Waiting in the Dark Phase of Your Life
Even if your mind wants answers and direction
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Words: 978 | Normal Reading: 5 minutes | Slow Reading: 10 minutes
The Sacred Act of Waiting During The Dark Phase
There comes a moment in everyone's life when the old structures begin to dissolve. It arrives quietly, without announcement, and is often mistaken for failure. What once “defined you” no longer feels true, yet the new has not yet emerged. In this space of not knowing, the mind becomes still, ambition falls away, and inner Being reveals itself.
For many, this moment arrives in the second half of life after climbing the ladders of success and fulfilling various roles. The achiever begins to lose energy. You sense a subtle yet undeniable inner invitation: Stop.
After this spiritual awakening, you might encounter The Dark Night of the Soul. It is a long, depressing, and very dark experience that can continue for days, months, or even years.
Are You Feeling Lost?
This dark phase is not your mistake; it is not a problem to be solved. It is life calling you back to surrender and turn your mind inward.
If you’re in this dark phase of life, you feel lost. Your heart is in anxiety, as if your world, with its known habits and conditioning, is coming to an end. This is because your conditioned mind pattern is dying. While dying, your mind makes you feel miserable by re-identifying yourself with its old dysfunctional patterns.
At first, this dark phase may feel terrifying. The mind wants answers, and the ego wants direction. But what is arising is something deeper—a falling away of worldly forms, the beginning of presence.
But what is one to do in such a place?
Wait.
Not idly, not in resignation, but with surrendering your mind inward.
Wait as the earth waits in winter.
Wait as the cocoon waits to become the butterfly.
When you wait, you're not doing nothing. You're allowing the silent power called God to move through you and guide your life.
The Necessity of Descent into Darkness
Midlife is often labeled a crisis, but it is more like cocooning. In nature, a cocoon is a vulnerable space—dark, hidden, and protected. Inside, the caterpillar completely breaks down and loses its old form before it can become a butterfly. It cannot rush this process, and neither can we. The real transformation occurs in stillness.
Our culture worships speed, certainty, and progress. But the divinity moves at a different rhythm. You don’t have to know what comes next. Life does. The inner being is not concerned with outcomes. It is concerned only with Now. And in the Now, everything you need is already present.
The mind will resist this pause. It will try to turn it into a project—“waiting to become.” But true waiting has no desire. It is a state of surrender, of allowing. You are not waiting for the next thing. You are simply resting in what is.
The Death of the False Self
In this sacred waiting, what often dies is not our life but our illusions: the persona we crafted to please, perform, and be loved.
The desire to be loved is the last illusion.
Give it up and you will be free. (-Margaret Atwood)
This realization is both painful and liberating. It marks the beginning of a spiritual transformation—one that is not about achieving but about awakening.
Darkness as the Womb of Transformation
Eventually, when the cocoon breaks open—not by effort, but by grace—you emerge not as someone greater but as someone more empty, more free, more real.
The true evolution in the second half of life is not to conquer but to surrender. Not to accumulate, but to shed. Not to do more but to become whole. It is the end of identification with forms.
We don’t return from this waiting with flashy revelations or strategic plans. We return to the timeless dimension within us and become one with it.
Suffering During The Dark Night of the Soul
Let me share a deeply personal phase I went through — a time of intense inner suffering:
After my awakening, everything that used to resonate with me just stopped.
My career, habits, relationships, and even my inclinations and likings seemed to fall apart.
And while all this was happening, I couldn’t shake off this constant sense of anxiety, this feeling of being "out of place."
It honestly felt like the end of my "known" world.
I was suffering, not just emotionally but physically, too. The pain was tremendous.
Amid all this, something inside me began to shift. A profound reorientation was taking place.
I found myself asking:
What do I do with my life now?
What is my role in this competitive world?
What is my relationship with my family, friends, wife, and children?
And perhaps the most haunting question of all:
Why is awakening not blissful?
Why isn’t it free from these painful, negative states?
A Simple Reminder if You’re Waiting in the Dark
If you find yourself in a season of suffering and uncertainty, where nothing moves forward, and the mind doesn’t know what to do next—Wait in spiritual surrender.
During this waiting, you are not lost. You are in the cocoon. This is your spiritual re-birth.
Breathe. Be still. Don’t escape. Don’t interpret. Just be here.
This is sacred ground. Surrender to the inner turmoil. Let the waiting do its work. This moment is not an interruption to your life. It is your life.
Spiritual awakening is the process of rebirth of everything you are! The Dark Night of the Soul is the process of dying of everything you are not!
Why Are You Swinging Between Anxiety and Peace?
Why can some people realize spiritual enlightenment and live permanently in the present moment while others are stuck in suffering, swinging between conscious and unconscious states of mind?
So true Aby!
This may be where I am at . But I’m a worrier a panicker , and worst case scenario , ASD and adhd burned out, burned out, all at the time I turned 50, lost parents and job . Grief / mid life crisis , burnout . Neuro divergent ? How on earth do I get back or through ? I’ve lost connection with every one and everything and feel so so lost and alone , even though I have a wife and 4 kids . It’s scary as hell.