The Dark Night

About three years into my Arica® experience, I was really turning up the heat on trying to become enlightened. Not only was I doing the intense Arica trainings, but I was meditating an hour to an hour and a half a day with a very powerful Taoist yoga. I was doing primal therapy. I was rebirthing underwater once a week. I was involved in Jungian dream studies. I was also getting Rolfed every week — very deep evolutionary myofascial intervention.

I will never forget it. It was in the afternoon. I was doing my chi gong Taoist yoga, and all of a sudden it was as if all the work I had been doing had culminated in this incredible recognition of my nothingness. I thought I was going crazy. I thought I was going to die. My heart was pounding, the sweat was pouring out of me. I had to stop.

I was desperate to extinguish this feeling, to go back to sleep. However, the beauty and power of the Arica® system is that once you have done a certain number of trainings and done them well, going back to sleep is not an option. That witness of all that you think you are and that you are not never truly goes away. For that is your true nature.

How I dealt with this was I stopped all meditation and began to drink alcohol on a regular basis. I was severely depressed. When I stopped drinking I would have severe anxiety attacks. I could hardly work at the bar where I worked. I could not relate to people. I could not have sex. I was smoking two packs a day. I was in such despair of my condition that suicide was a daily thought.

Luckily, the Arica® system understands that this dark night of the soul is just — and I use the word “just” generously — another step in the path towards enlightenment. Luckily, the people I was surrounded with understood this as well. I am sure I would have been committed and severely drugged had I been diagnosed by traditional medicine at that time.

The months went by. I developed a rhythm of drinking that kept my angst somewhat controlled. I had been planning to go to the Rolf Institute to become a Rolfer when this first happened. Drinking alcohol, I was able to get on the plane to Colorado to begin the class. However, the morning of the class it was clear to me that I was in no condition to be there. Fortunately at the time, the Rolf Institute was more of a spiritual school than one that revolved around techniques. They understood and recommended I go back to San Diego and come back when I was ready.

With that failure, and the deep depression and angst of my psyche so desperate to survive, I fumbled along for five or six months. I would break down in the middle of grocery stores in tears at my condition. It was not the best of times.

I had reached the other side. I let go of what needed to be let go of. After that I no longer needed to drink. I was able to stop smoking. I was introduced to the Fisher-Hoffman process, and soon after I was able to complete my Rolf training.

In retrospect, I realize how blessed I was to be in a community that could support that particular transition. Since then, when I come across alcoholics, narcotic addicts, and addictions of all forms, my compassion for the pain they must be in is significant. I would never have this if it had not been for what I had gone through. For that alone, it was worth it.