A year on from our conversation in Episode 6, Hany and I explore the organic movement that comes after the dark night. Amongst other things, we talk about moving beyond the shoulds to flesh, blood and bone; the difference between presence and being present; and telling and untelling the story. We discuss the ebb and flow of the space of unconditionality, and how it eventually anchors itself within us; the shattering of identities – “you’re losing the masks that you have put on to survive life”; and how we come face to face with our “inner architecture”.

We touch on discovering a sense of resolve or steadfastness rather than effort or force; our bodies saying stop; and living in sensations rather than in concepts. We share our experience of self-betrayal, and how it’s abated now that we’re for ourselves; how depression and anxiety resulted from losing ourselves; and the self being fully itself. We mention thresholds; becoming raw and human for the first time; and the trustworthiness of the somatic superintelligence. Finally, we describe how there’s now place for hatred as well as love; how the dark night is about integration, not elimination; and how humankind needs to come out of fragmentation into humaneness.

Hany Ezzat has walked through the dark night of the soul and come out writing. A storyteller at his core, he crafts narratives that connect, challenge, and endure. With twenty-six years in branding and creative strategy, he builds with meaning - whether in business or in life. Reinvention isn’t a phase for him; it’s the way forward. R.A.W. is the work shaped from his own process — a way of witnessing people return to themselves without theatrics. The rest is still unfolding.

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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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Mentions

Fiona quotes John Keats’s 1817 letter to his friend Benjamin Bailey: “O for a life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!”

Hany quotes Kahlil Gibran’s line from The River Cannot Go Back: “It is said that before entering the sea a river trembles with fear.”

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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