6 Powerful Lessons I Learned From The Darkest Time In My Life

The wilderness experience can be defined as any dark time that one may experience in their life; a time that may incur struggle or trouble.

One may feel an array of emotions during this time such as stress, depression, fear, uncertainty, emptiness, anxiety, and sadness. Some of these emotions can arise from seemingly out of nowhere.

This dark time can range anywhere from a few minutes to a few years. The wilderness experience is truly a blessing in disguise. It is a time for deep self-reflection and an opportunity to purge anything that is no longer serving you or taking you further on the path that you desire. Funny thing is I wasn’t even aware that I was in a wilderness experience. I just one day found myself feeling fed up and thinking “I’m doing all this internal work and healing, I’m letting things go, I’m doing everything to keep my vibration up AND I’m taking physical action towards my goals so what is really going on here?!”

I found myself questioning everything about my spiritual path; everything I have learned thus far. I thought I was going crazy and was wondering if any of this even real?! As usual it sent me on a quest seeking answers and as usual, the Universe delivered as it always does. As much as I questioned myself, which I knew was only my ego, I still found myself meditating and receiving profound awareness as to what I was experiencing and the importance of it.

Here are 6 insights that were communicated to me:

1. No one can escape it

When we first begin to embrace our spiritual journey, we can be misled with all the spiritual guidance that’s out there. At least that’s what happened to me and what I have seen happen to many others. Most times we decide to embark on the spiritual path because we are sick and tired of all the troubles of life and we think that by opening up to our spirituality, it will automatically become our saving grace from the hurdles in our lives and in the world.

While that is partially true, it can be misinterpreted. Spirituality becomes our saving grace because it allows us to shift our perceptions to the circumstances that surround us. However, it does not “take away” our problems. It allows us to perceive it from a different angle and by doing so we are able to see the lesson or gift within our troubles. We are also able to find solutions more quickly instead of focusing on the problems.

Some choose to embark on the spiritual path because they think it will wash all their troubles away and they will never have to experience a tough time or struggle ever again in life. This is where the frustration comes in and many people turn back to their old ways because they see no use in believing in something more than just our human experience.

2. Spirituality has become a commercial marketing tool

There is a lot of misleading information when it comes to spirituality. I am the first to admit that I got caught up in the crossfire. Along my journey I consumed a lot of information about the Law of Attraction, manifesting and co-creating your reality. It was exciting to learn that I was a powerful being filled with the magnificence of the Universe and had the power to create whatever I want in my life.

However, in some instances no matter how much I practiced this and applied the teachings, I still found myself in a wilderness experience. I couldn’t figure out why if I was supposedly doing everything “right”. During one of my meditations, it became clear to me that while all of the aforementioned has a lot of truth to it, it was not the whole truth and no one was speaking in depth about the wilderness experience.

There weren’t many teachers teaching about what a wilderness experience is, that it will happen to us all at some point in our lives and in most cases several times, tips or techniques on how to get through the wilderness experience, or how to find the jewels in it. They weren’t teaching that the wilderness experience is also a very crucial and important part of the spiritual journey. They were mostly teaching about the “light” side of things because it was more appealing and easier to sell. But you can imagine how this has discouraged many people away from the spiritual path. There’s all this information out there about creating your reality and attracting whatever you want, but what is one supposed to do when they feel as though they’ve entered a crisis phase in their life? I’m sure we can all use more information about that.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are many preachers, teachers and motivational speakers that I’ve heard say things like “Don’t give up”, “Hang in there”, “Troubles don’t last always”, “God is going to bring you out of this”, “Just keep the faith”, and etc. But no one was really teaching HOW to get through the tough times. And don’t worry, I’m already in the process of creating content for a class on the wilderness experience because I feel it is very much needed.

It is my belief that if more spiritual teachers began to focus on this subject and provide clear guidance on how to grow through the wilderness experience, we would have fewer people turning away from spirituality; because believe it or not the wilderness experience also plays a huge role in your manifesting abilities and getting you closer to your heart desire’s.

3. It’s meant to transform you

Think of the wilderness experience as the process that a diamond goes through to become, well, a diamond. It is buried deep within the earth and due to intense pressure and heat it then forms its triangular shape and rises to the surface to be extracted from the earth. This is why the wilderness experience is so important. It is meant to refine you; to transform you into the best version of yourself. The Universe is applying pressure to squeeze out all the goodness that you have within you.

It is not that you are doing something wrong or that God/The Universe is punishing you. Yes, there are some perceptually negative things we can attract to us based on the dominant vibration we have been offering; however, if you know that you have been predominately offering a high vibration and majority of your thoughts and speech have been centered around positivity or your heart’s desires than you can bet your bottom dollar that your wilderness experience may very well be a destined one for you ordered up by the Universe.

The wilderness experience is an opportune time to put all the teachings and awareness’s you have accessed into practice. The BEST transformations happen in the wilderness experience because you have no choice but to believe in something more, to muster up all the will power you have to create change within yourself and your life.

As I heard Bishop T.D. Jakes say once: “You will learn more about God on a bus stop, in an unemployment life, through the death of a loved one, than you ever will by just listening to a sermon.” Because as we all know, words only partially teach, it is through life experiences that we really become transformed and can apply the knowledge we have obtained.

4. How to truly connect with Source

The wilderness experience teaches you how to deepen your connection with Source/God/The Universe. This is a time to develop an intimate connection with The Universe. The wilderness experience can open you to your most vulnerable state and this is the prime state to be in to surrender to the path that Source has for you and to commune with it. Source wants you to fully open your heart and know its divine nature so that you can realize that same divinity within yourself. The wilderness experience empties you of all that you thought you knew about yourself and life so that you can receive the true divine wisdom of The Universe. It causes you to seek answers to question you didn’t even know you had. It opens your mind to receive answers and new perceptions.

5. It’s a training course – a time to put your wisdom into practice

As I stated previously, this is an opportune time to put your spiritual wisdom into practice. Besides, how will you know if you’ve truly mastered your mind or emotions, or have truly let something go without it being reflected back to you? Think about it, how does a boxer know all the training he has done in the gym has served him without stepping in the ring with an opponent? How does the student know that all his studying has paid off without taking the test? It’s easy to say we have mastered an aspect of ourselves without going through the experience again. This is where true alchemy lies.

6. There’s a natural rhythm to the universe

When I first began my spiritual journey, I got caught up in the glamour of experiencing nothing but positive things. I didn’t want to experience any type of “negativity” whatsoever. As I grew in my spiritual journey, I became aware that there is a natural ebb and flow to life and positive and negative is only perceptual.

In this space and time that we live in there is duality; light, dark, up, down, cold, hot, male, female. Light and Dark exists within the Universe and being as though we are made up of the same particles as the Universe, experiencing light and dark times in our personal life is not exempt. Will it always be this way? Who knows. But what we do know is it exists this way right now so we must learn how to maneuver with it.

As one becomes more aware of the wilderness experience and the purpose it serves, it won’t seem as scary or knock you too far out of alignment with your divine self. You’ll be able to recognize it for what it is and let it flow instead of fighting against it. You’ll learn how to soothe yourself through the experience until it ceases to exist anymore. You won’t become so emotionally attached to it or beat up on yourself so much because you’ll understand that it’s only temporary and the more you release resistance to it the more you can actually find peace in it and before you know it it’ll be over.

The Universe is always supporting us, even when it appears it’s not. We only fear the dark times so much because we haven’t been properly taught the understanding of it. For the most part, we’ve been taught that the darkness is bad, that we’re being punished, to run from it, to ignore it, that it’s evil and so on and so forth. But the Universe has placed beauty and wisdom in both the light and the dark; you just have to attune yourself to see it.