Anna’s dark night began in 2012. Facing a potential cancer diagnosis, her system – which had been in survival mode since childhood and her mother’s illness – crashed overnight. She experienced intense anxiety, terror and suffering, and thought she was going crazy – she “had no clue what was happening.” After six months, a friend lent her a book by Eckhart Tolle, and she started to understand that she was reconnecting with a deeper part of herself. Slowly, she realised that she was carrying intergenerational trauma, and that there was an intelligence to the process.

Amongst many other things, Anna and I talk about being unravelled and undone; the role of resistance; and learning how to stay with ourselves. We mention the uniqueness of each person’s journey, and how much we stumbled around; gradually moving towards greater wholeness; and touching into the deeper mystical level. We discuss meeting the shadow; wanting to be perfect; and the compassion that comes with seeing the actual nature of things. We also talk about our individual and collective madness, and how “we’re waking up from thousands of years of insanity.” Finally, we touch on love and power; becoming self-led; and knowing that – ultimately – the dark night is good news.

Anna Teggelaar guides people in self-healing and embodied inner work, helping them to make the process their own. Her work is rooted in the self-healing capacity of consciousness, and supports the integration of conditioning and stored emotional energy, so you can live more freely and from the heart. What began as her dark night of the soul in 2012 grew into a deep passion for the transformation of human consciousness. She offers online sessions, writes about healing, and has developed three practical guides to make inner work accessible and grounded in everyday life.

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Fiona Robertson is the author of The Dark Night of the Soul: A Journey from Absence to Presence, and Eve Was a Realist: Poems for the Untamed Heart. She works one to one with people who are going through a dark night or spiritual emergency, accompanying them in this challenging terrain as they rediscover and deepen into their real selves. She also offers a monthly dark night gathering group, and occasional workshops for therapists and counsellors.

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You’re welcome to contact The Dark Night of the Soul Unwrapped via email: darknightunwrapped@gmail.com

Music by James Waring / Design by Adam McKillop / Artwork by Stefan Armoneit