Dark Night of the Soul and Kids

“Must be hard being 10 and already going through dark night of the soul,” 14-year-old, Lainey, said as the two of us drove back from her fencing lessons.   
 
Her comment about her brother caught me off guard.
 
As a Spiritual Director, I companion adults going through Dark Night of the Soul, but I had not considered how children may, too.  I know that children suffer depression which in adults can coincide with Dark Night, but I had not seen Dark Night through a child’s eyes (even though our most memorable moments with God often happen when we are children).
 
For those not familiar with the concept, Dark Night is a stage in the spiritual journey that Saint John of the Cross experienced and wrote about in the 16th century.  He gave words to the “spiritual crisis” that occurs for those seeking union with God or to embody Perfect Love. 
 
Whether happening gradually or initiated through a tragedy or hardship, Dark Night can be felt as emptiness and dryness.  Our go-to spiritual practices no longer “work.”  Those activities and places of belonging that once brought us enjoyment, no longer do so.  We suffer disappointment, doubt, disorientation, discomfort, disillusionment, and even the utter disintegration of our thoughts and feelings about God, ourselves, and life.  In experiencing this loss and grief, depression can occur. 
 
We ask questions like, “Who am I?”  “Who and where is God?”  “What’s going on?”  “Why can’t things go back to ‘normal’?”  “What is normal anyway?”  “Will this ever end?”
 
This liminal space is entered into many times in our lives as we find ourselves in places and situations we would rather not be (like in a pandemic!).  We are in that “in-between” of who we were before and who will be after…it’s definitely uncomfortable.  My 10-year-old joins the rest of the planet in this communal Dark Night of the Soul.
 
He’s asking, “Who am I?”  “Who are my friends?” “Do I even have friends anymore?” “Will friends recognize me when I do go back to school?”  “Is virtual school even school?” “Will I ever play baseball or basketball again?”  “Will I even love sports again?”  “Things are too stressful in the world right now, is it always going to be like this?”
 
Now here’s what makes Dark Night different from depression.  When depressed, it’s a good idea to seek counseling and/or receive medication which hopefully helps us emerge from the darkness of depression with great relief.  And while there may be inner relief from the suffering (which is something to celebrate), there may not be inner transformation.  One may be grateful to simply return to oneself.        
 
During a Dark Night, rather than seeking a way out of the darkness, we are led deeper into it (a Spiritual Director is really helpful in the dark!).  This is the place where God loosens our attachments to all we may mistake for God, life, and our true selves. 

It can be painful to have these attachments revealed and painful to let go of them.  After all, we might really love being known as the athlete, whether spiritual or baseball!  We might cherish the feeling we get in imaging and relating to God in a certain way. 
 
However, when we emerge from Dark Night, we not only find relief but we are also transformed.  We no longer see or exist in the world in the same way we did prior to the darkness.  In other words, we do not return to ourselves, but are a new, truer Self!           
 
An expanded heart is the fruit of the Dark Night.  We see God, ourselves, and the world in deeper and wider ways and we are free to love God, ourselves, and the world in deeper and wider ways.
 
A different 14-year-old girl shared an image that came to her during our Girls’ Group-time of listening to the instrumental song, Unfolding.  It offers a beautiful and striking image of what it’s like to come through Dark Night of the Soul:

I saw a newborn fawn.
It still had that messy birth sack around it.
I saw one leg, then another, then all four pushed through the confines of that messy stuff.
It’s head broke through and it opened its eyes wide and looked around at the world for the very first time!
Then it stood up and walked for the very first time!  

The fawn had outgrown the only world it knew and she was witnessing the moment of it breaking free of the old and opening its eyes in the new one.  As her words convey, the birth process is messy--so is being “born again” into a new way of being and seeing!   This is my hope for our world.  In the words of Matthew Fox, “A pandemic is a terrible thing to waste.”    
 
In the meantime, we have the birth pains. 

Last night I talked with my son about his struggles and the possibility of counseling.  With his permission, I share what he said: “Mom, I don’t think I need counseling right now, I have no problem discussing my feelings with you and Dad.  And yeah, I’m learning new things about myself, but I’m mad and nothing helps.  I hate sports right now.  Lainey’s discovered a sport and mine are gone.  I can't do anything right.  I don’t know when it will end, maybe it never will.  But I don’t need any other voices right now, what I need is you.”
 
At 10, he’s being led deeper into the dark and I’m going to sit with him there, as a Spiritual Director and Mom.  Together, in this womb-like darkness, we’ll wait and trust that the God we cannot see or feel, is truly Emmanuel, “God-with-us.”   ​