Existential Crisis Mode

Entering the Dark Night of the Soul

Back to wondering why I’m alive.

Emily Jennings
3 min readJan 1, 2023

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dark night of the soul
Image credit: Canva

The light shines itself too brightly at times, and it illuminates uncomfortable truths about my reality. A revelation too big can make me slip into the darkness. My soul enters a dark night. Does this ever happen to you?

To be functional, we must have a grip on reality most of the time. We must be able to get our pants on and go out the door once in a while. There has to be some ongoing thread of simple motivation to keep living and doing mindless, mundane tasks all day. Shoving food in our mouths, trying to earn a paycheck, paying bills, sleeping, and then getting up to do it all over again. But why? What’s the point?

I once wrote about how I’m tired of making up reasons to live. Because that’s how it feels sometimes. We’re playing a make-believe game on a grand scale where there’s a point to all of this.

It’s hard when you’re struggling with grief and loss as I was. The world can seem terribly cruel. But even before I experienced trauma, I had episodes of darkness simply by reflecting on my reason for being alive.

When I have a revelation or an awakening and see that there’s no real point in any of it — that it’s all kinda made up — I slip back into a state of…

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Emily Jennings

I am here to confirm you're not crazy. Your life has meaning and nothing is an accident. | IG: @wellness_oneness | www.wellnessoneness.com