When It Rains, It Pours

Awakening comes in cycles. I had already undergone about four pretty big cycles of shifting perspective, facing fears and processing through all the false mental constructs in my mind.

I had a wonderful year of being pregnant with my second born, Tate. Yes there was the nausea, the exhaustion, the groggy brain, but I was so content and happy to be having another baby that none of it really bothered me that much. I was flowing with life, happy for my swelling belly and had an inner solace of deep contentment.

Within this flow, I decided that I wanted to move forward with a natural birth with Tate about a month before he was born. This was once again facing my fears head on and learning the power of intention. February 18, 2024 I gave birth to an angel—Tate Burton Sommers—naturally and without an epidural on the bathroom floor of the hospital. It was incredibly empowering and an amazing experience.

The first six weeks of the post partem period were filled with getting up every couple of hours to feed, days spent on the couch breastfeeding, a short stint of mastitis and plenty of baby snuggles. I was deeply content and happy and overjoyed to have brought Tate into this world.

Then week seven of the post partem period hit. Within this time period I hit a new level in my meditation practice, I remember sitting there and being like wow what open, beautiful, expansive awareness. It was incredible.

But then during week seven post partem, energy started to shift. Something started to happen that was totally out of my control. I remember when this first happened I went to bed but then kept having to get up to go to the bathroom because there was so much energy starting to move.

Things only started to unravel from there. I started to not be able to sleep which had nothing to do with Tate, I had been sleeping really well prior even in between the night feedings. Little did I know that I was entering the Dark Night of the Soul which I believe was catalyzed owing to being on maternity leave and living a more quiet and introspective life as well as the point at which I had come to in my meditation practice.

I was being called into the darkness and to say that it was intense is an understatement. Especially while also trying to be a mom of a toddler as well as a newborn. My internal life completely and utterly unraveled. I felt deserted by the universe and was left barren, stripped and in the dark with nowhere to go except to simply let go.

And let go I did. And when I let go, I could feel this amazing blissful energy surging into my body (but these moments were few and far between).

The Dark Night of the Soul led to the void in which I was stepping from living from the old ego-based self to more soul aligned self. This was terrifying. Absolutely and utterly terrifying.

After the void, came the transition. This was essentially the old ego-based self battling with the new soul aligned self. This back and forth felt like a constant tug of war and was mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting and draining.

The transition segued into the releasing of external patterns that no longer served me and to continue to trust my own intuition and guidance. Trusting myself was a massive theme in my Dark Night of the Soul. This portion of the journey rattled some very close relationships and forced me to essentially face a lot of my fears head on. It forced me to be ok with failure, it forced me to step outside of living within the truth of others, it forced me to intensely look at the life I had built and how much of it was aligned with the old me.

Then the main focus of the journey shifted from internal to external and an intense and deep desire to shift my external world as it was not aligned with my true desires, my true soul. This then led to even more upheaval in the form of challenging conversations, lots of tears, draining emotions and a lot of work that needed to be done to start to shift things. Some themes that began to emerge during this time period were the intense desire to live more simply, to have less material things, to honor and nurture mother earth, to move houses, to shift jobs and to essentially re-jigger our whole lives into a more soul-aligned way of life.**

Amongst this intense inner growth cycle/Dark Night of the Soul, this was all happening while returning to work (to a new role due to a large company re-org), taking care of a toddler and an infant and trying to function on sleep deprivation.

But amongst all of this and I am still very much learning this, it has been and will be a gift. It’s a gift to live a more soul aligned life. To let life flow and let life take me and let life be there for me. It’s coming into alignment with your truth and that truth is beautiful. And life will begin to unfold in magical and beautiful ways. I am excited to see what comes of all of this and where life takes us and where life unfolds.

**As of this writing the external shifts are still taking form in the background. I have also learned that large shifts led from the soul in alignment with universal flow can take a lot of time and require patience and acceptance with how things will unfold in due time.