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“Not again! You groan, sitting up in the bed, swinging your legs over the side, careful not to wake anyone. Why are you awake this time?  Babies, spouse, and pets have all been fed. The meal has been cooked and consumed, all counters have been wiped clean and everything is as it should be. The house is silent as everyone and everything is asleep. Everything is as it should be. But is it?

It is three in the morning, as it always is when you awaken out of a sound sleep, this is the third time this week. If everything is as it should be, why are you awake? Again?  And why is your mind going what seems like 100 miles per hour as you mull over the events of your day?  Everything is fine. Isn’t it?  Your babies are healthy.  Your relationship is great.  But there is something, something that you just can’t quite put your finger on but it’s there. You know it’s there.  You feel it. But what is it?  Underneath the happy marriage, the beautiful children, the challenging job.  When the night is still, it appears –  the belief, the feeling that you were meant for more. The tiny voice that calls to you to reach out to meet your heart’s desire, what it is that you were meant to do, to be. It’s there, just out of reach.

But, you’re tired, and there’s work tomorrow and you need to try to get at least another hour of sleep before the alarm sounds. Time to head back to bed. You’ll figure it out later, right?  Right?”

Hey Disrupters!  My name is Trudi Lunnie-Thomas, Certified Life and Leadership Coach and host of the Woman on Fire Show.  My job, my honor, is to stand shoulder to shoulder with my Clients in this Arena I call Life, holding space for my Client as she – or he – work to find answers to the questions that shape their world.  Today might be a tough one and the time we spend together might be a tough one but I promise, it could be also very, very rewarding.  So, should we try it?

F Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that “In the real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning”.

Indeed, three o’clock in the morning seems to be a magic hour of sorts, the time of the morning when all the things from the day seem to present themselves front and center for evaluation and critique.  The good, the bad and the ugly.  The situations that you could have handled better.  The situations that could have turned out worse. The conversations not had.  The conversations that would have been better off left alone.  They all come back to visit at three in the morning like ghosts of Christmas Past.

The dark night of the soul has been explained as a period marked by feelings of despair, a loss of meaning and deep uncertainty about life and your purpose in it.  It can be brought on by an external event such as natural disasters, a life-changing medical diagnosis, the death of a loved one or by personal events such as reaching a milestone birthday. Or hitting rock bottom as a result of an addiction.  Suddenly, everything that had meaning attached to this event has changed, even disintegrated and what is left is painful maybe even chaotic and overwhelming. During this time of chaos, we are left to do battle with what has been called the “shadow” by some and to try to figure out what brought us to that point – and how we can move past it.

Unfortunately for a lot of us, the figuring it out part never happens.  Sometimes the events that brought us to this point are not considered to be as drastic as a death in the family, or the loss of your home due to storms and the like.  But it is there, the restlessness, the underlying feeling that there could be more to you and your life.  And these feelings can be just as disruptive a natural disaster, if not more so.

This is what I call the Dark Night in The Arena and is the reason you might be here today.  What is it, and why now?  Disrupter, you already have the answers you need – inside.

Your Dark Night in The Arena affects every part of your life.  Not just your Soul, but everything and everyone you touch.  Who am I now? What do I want now? How am I going to get there?  What will I gain? What will I have to give up?  Your Arena – your life – is vast and people and situations weave through your Arena during any given time.  Any situation that causes a disruption or seeks an answer for this situation, these unresolved issues affect and change everything in your Arena, intentionally or not.

A true Dark Night in the Arena is a reckoning, a longing, a calling, a twinning of fear and purpose.  We are meant to be more.

A true Dark Night in the Arena is a reckoning, a longing, a calling, a twinning of fear and purpose.  We are meant to be more.  Answering these questions is a true disruption of your Status Quo and causes us to look inward, shrugging off the outer public self to look at and examine the basic part of ourselves.  It is when we are faced with our brokenness, the part that yearns to inhabit our heart’s desire.

But how on earth can we get there?  First things first, we have to look past our messes, the crisis’s, the broken dreams, all of the experiences that cover up where we are most vulnerable and summon the courage to make the changes necessary to make the changes you want. But first, you gotta know what you’re working with?

TRUTHWORK in your Arena.  As a Life Coach, I work with my Clients to confront these situations and the experiences that are associated with these so that we can start to let go of attachments to these situations.  In order to confront these, you have to name it.  Call it what it is.  Uncover its truth, whatever it is. I want to offer a couple of first steps to naming and owning your situation.

So, a little homework, oh I know, I can hear you groaning NO HOMEWORK, so instead of calling it homework, so… let’s call it TRUTH WORK, this is where you get to find out what it is going on inside of your Arena.  Once we name it, define it we know what it is and can better understand how to handle it.

First, no matter how painful, we must welcome the Dark Night In Our Arena. No, I know how it sounds, but yes, welcome it.  It’s the reason you’re here in the first place.  Come on, work with me on this one.  Your dark night, no matter how painful represents your call for action, your cry out for help.  When you ignore it, it comes back with friends and they won’t be so nice the next time.  Your dark night can provoke deep questions that you’d been unable, maybe even unwilling, to ask yourself before.  Yes, while it may feel like hitting a wall, it can be scary but consider this, during this time, this period, you have to ASK what this means.  Ask, did you hit a wall or was it a door?  A wall represents a situation that you must confront before moving forward.  A door represents an opening into a new situation.  So, you gotta make this determination.  Door or Wall? To do this, you must look at it.  What is it?  What does this have to do with me?  Why now?

Your dark night, no matter how painful represents your call for action, your cry out for help.

Next, Dark Nights In Your Arena provide opportunities for growth. As worrisome and as stressful as you Dark Night may seem, it is important at this stage to give yourself Grace as you ask the deeper questions to discover what is going on at this time. Spiritual, psychologically, physically, it all starts here. In The Arena.  Understanding this one thing is how we can move beyond “How did this happen and how do I fix it?” to “What can I learn from this?”

Give yourself Grace as you ask the deeper questions to discover what is going on at this time. Spiritually, psychologically, physically.

As I coach my Clients, I remind them that no matter what you are going through, no matter how you came to this point, you have the answers inside, you have the solution to any problem inside.  You, Disrupter, are the answer to your questions.

Now for the TRUTH WORK.  As an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Louis Dembitz Brandeis is quoted as saying, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants”.  The best way to answer questions during the Dark Night in The Arena is to shed the light of truth on the situation.

So, if you can, take out a piece of paper.  If you’re driving, please wait, I don’t want to HELP you into a traffic accident. But once you are able to, write down the following questions, and then answer them to the best of your ability. You may not know all of the answers right now, but you are capable of finding your solution.

Just two questions until we meet again on the show and they may be simple, or they may open up a whole over the situation.  First question, What is going on in your ARENA?  Second, How Does It make you feel?

That’s it, the first steps are the hardest but the most important when it comes to shaking up for status quo and beginning your wonderful crazy journey into answering your personal Call To Action in your life.  You’re ready.  You are a bold confident warrior in your Arenac and you have all that you need inside. It is my honor to work with you, shoulder to shoulder to uncover the life you’ve only dreamt of before today.

So that’s it for this time, Disrupters!  So, come back and join us again for our next post to explore what it means to be a disrupter in your Arena.  The Woman on Fire Show and Blog Posts will publish every other week but check back often.  Our Friday Fives and Blog Posts are published every Friday to give you just a little something to take you into your weekend.  So, until next time, Bye Bye!

Trudi Lunnie-Thomas, BA, MA is a Life and Executive Coach for Woman on Fire Coaching and Consulting and Host of the Woman On Fire Radio. Her goal is to help her clients to disrupt the patterns established as part of their Status Quo, the habits, and limitations that control every part of their lives so that they can reclaim who they really are and how to live their lives to the fullest.  To continue the conversation, please come over to my blog at www.thearena.online. Thank you and go out and disrupt your Status Quo!