Welcome And Morning Quiet

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. I am Rasmeed and today my guest is Kelly Oher, who is here to talk about her Dark Night of Soul, how it reshaped who she was herself to be, and how it became the source of her novel series Canum. Kelly, welcome.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Thank you, Rasmeed. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Yeah. So, Kelly, before we go in, tell me what the first hour looks like now? Like after everything you have lived through, the small things, the ritual, the parts of the morning that you protect for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

So you want to know about like what I the first thing I do in the morning?

SPEAKER_00 0:46

I'm s yeah, right. Some rituals that you perform or something that you just can't miss.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Um, I do try to have quiet time every morning. Some people may call it meditation. Um, but it's very important to me that I spend time just in quiet first thing in the morning. Um then that's sacred time for me. I really tried not to miss that. Um, and that just sets the cadence of my day. I really like how I feel. If I don't do it, I can tell.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Okay.

What A Dark Night Really Is

SPEAKER_00 1:18

And I want to start with a misconception. You know, the phrase dark night of the soul gets used a lot. So often to describe a bad week or a hard match. But what you went through was something much more deeper and much longer than that. So tell me what is, you know, the part people get wrong about in real dark night of the soul. What does it actually look like that the culture, you know, are short and and never captures?

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Yeah, so I have to agree with you. There are certain phrases like dark night of the soul that are used. I mean, I understand why. I mean, if you're having a bad week, you're having a bad week, but it's not a dark night of the soul. It's just a bad vision. To me, a dark night of the soul is an event in your life, a sequence of events, a chapter, if you will, of your life that changes the course of your life. And in order to survive the change, you are challenged greatly to show up for yourself in a way that you hadn't yet prior.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yeah, that's right. And when you were inside that part, what was the thing that surprised you the most?

Health Crisis And Marriage Truths

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Well, mine started with a health crisis. And, you know, for anyone um, and the millions of people in your audience that have been a health crisis, it's it's a really, really fight frightening experience. And in that health crisis, I realized I was no longer happy in my marriage and that my marriage was over. So there was a lot of foundational truths, the trust in my body, um, a marriage, which is something that is so foundationally strong and gives us such a feeling of safety, um, that was just stripped away from me. So my dark night of the soul was so profoundly difficult, but it really introduced me back to myself and what my capacity is, my inner strength, my my willingness to show up for myself and not compromise this one life that we get to experience in as Kelly O'Hearn. So it was my greatest gift, no question.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Right. And hearing you describe the inside of yours really reframes something for me because about you know how to talk about it at all. So uh moving forward to the next question, let's just go underneath. Like when the architect of an identity comes down, it almost never starts with one event. There are, you know, errors of small signals or small refusals, small misalignments that finally accumulate into the unraveling. So, what was actually coming apart underneath and in the years before the dark night arrived in your conscious awareness?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

It's such a good question, Razmeed. It's so true. As I always say, the call of the soul begins years before um generally a dark night may occur. Now, what that means is exactly what you say. You start to get a niggle, an awareness, certain moments of clarity that you're like, wait a second, whoa, whoa. I, I, you know, and I knew I knew there was something wrong in my marriage. And but I, you know, I had young children and I really loved my family, you know, I loved the four of us. And so it was very hard to kind of disentangle it all. And to be honest, Razmeet, I didn't want to hear it. But the niggles would come and those gentle nudges would push against me. I didn't want to hear it, so I ignored it. And of course, when you ignore the call of the soul or you ignore the divine or you ignore God or the universe or whatever you want to call it, they will up the volume of the nudge. So the eventually I manifested a physical illness in order to get my attention. And that's, I mean, that's really how it happened. But I knew for a few years before that that something was wrong.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Okay.

The Mundane Days Of Unraveling

SPEAKER_00 5:22

So uh, you know, I want to bring this out uh of the cosmic frame and into the texture of an ordinary day inside a dark night because the dramatic version everyone talks about is not only what living inside it is like. It is mostly small, the dishes, the coffee, the moments of going through motions while something underneath has gone silent. So, what did it actually look like in your ordinary day in your ordinary days while the unraveling was happening?

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Well, like you said, you really focus on the mundane of your life. You just keep putting one foot in front of the other. I as I mentioned, I had children that needed their mother, um, and they needed the best version of me possible to show up. And that was a really wonderful gift because I didn't have to think about it all day. I didn't have to dwell on it all day. Um, I'm a I'm a very high-functioning, high-energy person. So my days, I may have been a bit emotionally flat, um, but my days were full of activities and, you know, and travel and, you know, all the things that I enjoy in my life.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Okay. And tell me something more about, you know, the going through part. Like, what did it actually feel like from the inside?

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Well, when I was in the throes of it, in the worst chapter and the worst time of it, I mean, there was great fear there, you know, because the unknown was was just staring at me and it was just so vast. Um, so I really sought out um new habits, new interests. That's when I started to meditate. I started mindfulness practices. Um, I tried to really um take care of my body and eat well and get good sleep, um, you know, because you, you know, fear can be paralyzing. And I did not um, and I knew that if I succumbed to it, it would be much harder to get started again. So I just kept trying to bring in new.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Right. And you know, that really reframes something for me, honestly, because most people imagine a dark night as a dramatic stretch of weeping or something, but the real thing is much quieter sometimes, much more ordinary, and you know that ordinariness is its own kind of grief. So uh let's get practical now.

The Small Practice That Held

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Like the people listening are in their own versions of this right now, not the same shape, but somehow in the same situation. So, you know, that's slowly unraveling, the loss of the old self, the not yet arrived of the new one. So, what is that practice that actually held you through? Not the headline practice, the real one, the small one that you know you came back to even on the worst days.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Well, to be honest, for me, it was during this time that I discovered the tarot, and tarot cards for me, regardless of whether you believe in the validity of them, were such a wonderful focus for me to spend an hour or an hour and a half on every day, learning the language, just detaching from my reality. So I would I would really encourage people to find something that interests you. It doesn't have to be a fascination, but you know, learn a new language. Uh, teach yourself to cook, something that you can focus on that requires your attention and you know, a distraction to it that allows you to completely like detach from your reality because there's a lot of peace in though in that hour, in that 45 minutes, you know, hour and a half, however long you stay in it, that was um a lifesaver for me.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Right, because you know, there's something um, you know, in what you just said that I really want to hold on for a second because the practice that holds you through the dark nights of your days is almost never the impressive one. You know, sometimes it is small, almost an embarrassing one that you do at six in the morning or five in the morning because something something inside you knew that it was a lifeline before your mind could explain why.

Staying Loyal To Your Becoming

SPEAKER_00 9:35

So uh the last big question, uh, because the old self does not just leave quietly, it comes back, you know, um somewhere sometimes, especially when the new life feels uncertain or hard sometimes. So there must have been moments um writing where the voice of the old you tried to walk you out of it or told you to go back to something safer, to something more recognizable. So, how do you handle those moments now? Or how do you stay loyal to who you are becoming when you were first trying to recruit you back? Yeah, it's true.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

You know, our we're constantly programmed to try to avoid change, especially change that involves pain um and hardship and struggle. So it's true, the old self does come around a lot trying to lure you back, you know, in in order to um, you know, get really save you from the pain that you're in and the struggle that you're in. So, but for me, I I mean, I'm just a very decisive person. And even though I was in a difficult time, I knew it would get better. I hadn't to see it through. And I was committed, you know, it I there there there's a point in time where you do have that moment where you could turn around and go back. But you know, once you commit, you have to see it through. And I promise you, you get through it and it gets better and it's worth it. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yes. And I think a lot of people listening, especially the ones midway through their own unraveling, are going to recognize that voice, you know, naming it for what it is instead of mistaking it for freedom is most of the

How To Love The Struggling Part

SPEAKER_00 11:28

work. And if someone listening right now is in the middle of their own dark night of the soul and is afraid that they will never come back to themselves, what do you want them to hear slowly?

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Well, you have to understand something. The dark night of the soul doesn't mean you're away from yourself, it's a part of you. So welcome it. Ask it to teach you what you need to know. Don't think of it as a momentary blip uh in the existence of you that you will come out of and leave behind. No, there's there's great grace and dignity in having the courage to walk that path. But it's one of the most beautiful parts of me, is that part of me that was strong enough to endure that. So I love that part of me, even though it was hard. So I encourage everybody, love the part of you that is struggling, just like you would an injured child. If if you saw or an injured animal that you were can like would care for to nurse it back to health, like really care for yourself as you're going through this, because uh it's you. I mean, you it's not a separate you, it's not a it's not a like momentary blip of you, it's just you.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Right. And Kelly, if someone listening is standing at the rickage of an all identity and starting to wonder like, is it actually possible on the other side? What is the one thing you want them to walk away with this podcast today?

SPEAKER_01 13:05

It's absolutely possible on the other side, yes. 100% yes. You you if you if if someone in your audience or many people in your audience are even asking that question, just the ask of that question tells me, yes, go take that step, be brave, it'll be worth it.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Right.

Where To Find Kelly And Closing

SPEAKER_00 13:26

And uh Kelly, where can our uh listeners find you and uh your Arkanum series?

SPEAKER_01 13:32

So my Arcanum Book series, I have a website called arcanumtheseries.com. And I'm also you can uh watch me and my tarot readings as well as my updates about my books on my Instagram account at KellyOearn Author. And that's the same at Kelly O'Hearn Author on TikTok.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Okay, so there was a moment in this conversation where uh Kelly you talked about staying loyal to who you are and your becoming. I just want uh our listeners to hold that one. So thank you so much, Kelly.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Thank you, Razmeet. It was a joy to talk to you.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Thank you. Same here, and to everyone listening, the dark night is not the end of the story, it is often where the actually story finally begins. So we'll see you on the next episode of Healthy Mind, Healthy Life.