Twin flame dark night of the soul is a part of a journey in the twin flame separation stage when the worst wounds, fears and loneliness come to surface. The emotional and even physical responses to separation go beyond anything previously experienced in relationships. It feels as if the very ground has been knocked out from under your feet.

You feel like you are being operated on without anesthesia, and the torture seems to be never-ending, all-encompassing, so profound it sometimes knocks the living breath out of you. Why does it hurt so much? And how to make the pain go away?

The pain drives you to look for answers, to try and understand why it hurts so much, and to find ways of feeling better. It is at this stage of grasping for remedy, something, anything to make the pain go away, that many come across twin flame teachings. But the experience of pain, separation and lack of spiritual light to follow has been known for centuries also outside the modern twin flame context. This sense of profound spiritual disconnect is called the dark night of the soul.

What Does Dark Night of the Soul Mean?

The term “dark night of the soul” was coined by the 16th century mystic St John of the Cross. His poem by the same name describes the journey of a soul from identifying with physical reality towards Union with God. In the work of St John of the Cross, dark night of the soul is defined as feeling separate from the Divine.

Dark night of the soul is a profoundly mystical experience, where the soul learns to drop her reliance on external manifestations, and to go inward. In other words, one is guided to love God for God’s sake alone, not for anything God can give or say. In order to do this, one needs to go within, and rather than look for God outside, find Him in the depths of one’s own heart.

It may come as a surprise, because on the surface of it, the heart only carries grief and despair, anger and abandonment. The heart wants God to come here and now, to give words of comfort and consolation, to solve all problems, to fill all voids, and to make everything as it used to be. But God is nowhere to be seen. And so the heart is forced, through great pain and resistance, to open deeper and deeper. Until, to one’s amazement, at the bottom of the well of the heart, one finds God was there all along. God was within the heart all along.

Dark night of the soul is a path of a Lover transforming into the Beloved.

The Pain of Twin Flame Separation

In our physical reality, we live separation within our own bodies. Our physicality makes us experience ourselves as separate from our own souls, from the Divine, and from Love. The beginning of the path towards Union is to come to a realization of this. And this realization plunges a soul into deep despair, into feeling of being abandoned by God. In a twin flame relationship, this takes on a very practical form: my twin flame wants nothing to do with me.

The pain of twin flame separation is a reflection of our original wound of separation from Source. It is also the beginning of the path towards mystical Union. The danger of many modern twin flame teachings is that it is very easy to overlook the spiritual aspect of this connection in favor of all the romantic “my other half” ideals. There is nothing wrong with having the other half. But the source of the pain is not the relationship. The source of the pain is at the level of the soul.

Nowadays, everyone wants a twin flame. It sounds evolved and perfect, a fulfillment of all romantic longings and a way to fill the void within. One is willing to put up with abuse and neglect, or obsessively pursues a complete stranger, because they are a “twin flame”. They’ll come round and we will be together forever. Right?

But the conviction that “I have to pursue this relationship no matter what” only leads to more separation pain in the end. You can’t manifest a twin flame. You never heal enough to be worthy of a twin flame. You can’t vision board a twin flame. You can scream and stomp and demand all you want, the relationship is not going to materialize the way you want it. You can only dive deep into the well of the dark night.

Union with all-that-is can only be experienced at higher vibrational levels — which is why you may have often heard that twin flames cannot come into Union unless they reach a high enough stage of spiritual development.

Separation as a Dark Night Trigger

Twin flame separation pain plunges us into a deep dark night of the soul, when we feel completely abandoned, lost and unloved — because suddenly we are all alone. We now have to face the truth of being separate from Source. And ultimately, we have to make the journey back to Source. The journey towards recognizing that this separation is not the Truth, but an illusion. This journey is not intellectual. Dark night of the soul is an embodied descent into Hell.

But very few twin flames deal with separation in an evolved and spiritual way of mystics and poets. Most either go into complete denial, or start chasing with every fiber of their being, becoming more and more desperate by the hour. Rising above clinging and grasping may take years of healing work and spiritual discipline.

We are all a product of our upbringing and environment, formed by our beliefs and convictions about romantic love. We are formed by our deep wounds and traumas related to relationships and bonding. When a soul connection such as twin flame comes into our life, it serves as a spiritual activation, giving us a glimpse of Divine Union. And while our ego, our personality, identifies with our wounding and beliefs, our soul starts calling us towards the Real.

Bonding Wounds

After the spiritual activation of the initial meeting, all the deep wounds that our ego has identified with begin to come up to the surface. These include our bonding wounds in relation to our parents. All the parts of ourselves that feel unloved and unworthy come up to the light and demand attention.

With our twin flame, we feel the cumulative pain of all the times when we felt abandoned, unwanted and betrayed. And because we can’t see through the veil of these past experiences, we begin projecting their pain on our twin. It is all his/her fault! My twin flame hurt me! How can I get them back into my life?

It seems like such a natural response — I have found the only thing that matters, I would gladly give up everything to have it! But there is more to it. If we do what we always did, cling, grasp, demand, manipulate — we will get what we always got. Dysfunctional, superficial, broken relationships. This is not the call of twin flame love.

What Happens After the Dark Night of the Soul

The dark night of the soul is the fertile field of growth and transformation. It is possible to emerge on the other side, joyful and free of pain and hopelessness. Indeed, on the other side you see pain and hopelessness for what they were — a dream within a dream. They were only the products of deep wounding that you carried. After the dark night, the true meaning of Union shines through. And that Union is so much more than anything a wounded ego can imagine.

Can a journey towards Union be possible without pain? Well, yes and no. Pain is just a reflection of our separate state. But for the ego, the road to joy is painful. So while in Reality separation is just an illusion, our pain is very real, and the spiritual work to break through it is very hard. Up until the point when we reach the other side.

Can a Twin Flame Connection be Broken?

Many twin flames give up on their connection and prefer to pursue a “normal” human relationship without engaging in all the spiritual work. They seek clarity and an either/or relationship. Which is perfectly fine. But can a twin flame connection be broken, and the pain gone?

The bond that connects twin flames lasts into eternity. The reason for this is that twin flames are already one at the higher levels, the blocks they encounter manifest primarily at the physical and emotional levels of reality. But while it is impossible to completely break or cut off a twin flame connection, it is possible to emotionally disconnect and not feel the pain.

The problem in this case is not the twin flame, or the “connection.” The problem is that we ourselves choose suffering based on our wounding and distorted view of reality. Many twin flames gave up on the connection and found themselves meeting a soulmate only to discover that this new relationship follows the same dysfunctional pattern. A soulmate also rejects them, or does not communicate, or is not available. Then they recognize that the problem was never their twin flame to begin with.

Once again, it is an open invitation to jump into the well of the heart. Underneath all the dark waters, all the dirt and the pain, there is a bright diamond. The dark night of the soul is a propeller into incredible spiritual heights and a tunnel into the joy and bliss of Union. Are you willing to do the work?