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Finding Light In The Dark Night

September 25, 2018 By Julian Kaufmann

It’s Always Darkest Before The Dawn

You know what I am talking about if you have been through it. It’s a time when your world is upside down, you feel isolated, and nothing seems right. You are alone with your thoughts and can’t sleep. It’s the middle of the night.

There is a name for these periods of somber, dark reflection. A time when your life is shaken at its core –your beliefs, ideals, family, job, health, any and all of the things that give your life meaning are in doubt. You doubt God, your higher power, or perhaps you conclude there can’t be one anyway. You ponder life and the apparent emptiness of it all. The name of this is the Dark Night of The Soul.

Darkness can be described as the absence of light. During the Dark Night, there is rarely any light. The light of love and God’s grace is not readily seen or felt.

They say that absence can make the heart grow fonder, but during the dark night, your heartbreaking is what you encounter.

And the dark night is not just an isolated event, at least it was not for me. Many sleepless nights led to many angst-filled days. Days and nights blurred into a simmering purgatory of being wired and tired. Exhausted by day and unable to sleep at night. The cycle continued until I was able to break through and find the light again.

You can break through too, and I want to help you by providing you with help to get you through those nights and hopefully stay clear of them all together.

A sound body, mind, and spirit can help you thrive in whatever conditions life’s seasons offer at you. My upcoming book  The Power Of Presence – How To Amp-Up Your Life will provide you with all the tips and techniques I learned or have researched to give you the best tools to live your optimal life. Please, sign-up if you would like to help support me in this latest effort. Thank you and Namaste!

“It is precisely because we resist the darkness in ourselves that we miss the depths of the loveliness, beauty, brilliance, creativity, and joy that lie at our core.” ― Thomas Moore, Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life’s Ordeals

The following is an excerpt from the book, a snapshot of the diary of my dark night that occurred in 2008:

3:30 AM: I wake up with my chest pounding, gasping for air. I feel like I am simultaneously drowning and someone or something is sitting on my chest. I am cold and sweating at the same time. I bolt up on to a sitting position on my bed. Disoriented I look around the darkened room and do not know where I am. What happened last night, what hotel am I staying – where am I? Then it all comes back to me. I am at home or at least the house where my family and I lived.

My eyes focused on the clock as the red numbers came into view. Three Fucking Thirty! A mere 4-hours ago I went to sleep and was desperately hoping not to have another repeat performance to what I had previously gone through the day before. Morning would not be here for another few hours, and then I had a full day of work waiting for me. I looked over at my empty bed and turned on the light.

If there is one thing I could not stand then it was lying in bed tossing and turning. I had made myself a promise to give up on that nighttime rumination and instead do something. But what can you do at 3:30 in the morning? With nothing else to do, I turned on the TV, staring blankly at the screen, mindlessly flicking through channels. The room glowing a pale blue as the rest of the world waited for dawn.

When the true dawn came, I had already had four cups of coffee. Black as oil is how I like to drink it. And I falsely assumed that if you are more tired, then all you need to do is drink more coffee! I try to go for a run thinking that the exercise will make me feel better. I feel so edgy and am desperate to rid myself of this feeling of needing to do something but not knowing what to do. My run does not go well. Over the past months, my time per mile has been slipping. I think well maybe tomorrow I’ll do better. I just need to try harder! My inner critic’s voice is louder now in the quite of the morning making my headache even worse.

9:00 AM: After cleaning up, I head to my office. The mood there is somber at best. The company where I work is in the process of winding down. For the past 6 months we have entertained a parade of potential buyers, but unfortunately, there are no takers. The end is near, and my colleagues and I know it. We try to make the most of our situation even though we are all condemned to look for work elsewhere. The company we built is going out of business. At this point in my career, I had been employed continuously for over 20-years. I did not want this streak to come to an end and felt like I needed money more than ever.

The primal response of fear and the worry over the potential loss of income begin to make their presence known to me. My marriage dissolving and after surviving the near death of my daughter make me feel like a bomb has gone off in my home. Nothing is the same for me – there seems to be no safety and no comfort. I imagine that this is what leads to PTSD’s.

Meanwhile, I continue drinking coffee all day. My body temperature is off, and I am enjoying the warmth from the java. Still, I am cold, chilled to the bones, and there is a general ache in my body. My brain is foggy, yet I know I am not thinking right. Still, I am powerless to stop or change it. I am chronically distracted. At work, I think about my home life and my family, while fantasizing of restorative sleep. At home I think about my work, unable to sleep imagining nightmares of financial ruin.
Meanwhile, I am incredibly hungry, craving sweets like donuts and candy. I eat another breakfast – my 2nd of the day, a fried chicken biscuit. Over lunch, we all go out, and we eat burgers and fries. I drink 3-4 glasses of iced tea (unsweetened at least). I am ravenously hungry, but there is nothing that can satisfy me. After lunch, the day proceeds with all of us either looking for potential new employment or distracting ourselves in whatever news events are there. Around 5:30 it is time to head over to the bar. Once there we have two or three beers. We are like the characters from the movie the Green Mile – dead men walking.

Around 9:00 pm I return home after picking up some take-out. The place is empty. I am alone – empty in my house. I am depleted physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. My marriage is over. My job is over. Who am I now and who will I be when the divorce and the company winding down are complete?

Tonight I say I will get some sleep. So I go to bed and as soon as I lie down, all of the thoughts come racing through my head. What will I do when I am divorced? How are our children going to deal with this? How can I support my family? Why is this happening to me? Why does God forsake me? After 20-30 minutes of tossing and turning in my bed, I head downstairs and pour myself a glass of red wine. The wine tastes good, and it helps me relax. I lie down on the couch and watch TV, with the LCD screen illuminating the room. There is not much on, so I watch the news, CNBC or MSNBC. It is 2009, the US economy is in shambles. The Great Recession has hit, wiping out families. In this market, I must find new work while having to provide for my family.

Damn. When will this mess end? I head upstairs to my bed and slide under the covers. I remember what I had learned from my daughter’s caregivers saying that when you feel overwhelmed just repeat to let go, let God. I learned this expression to help me deal with my daughter’s illness. Do your best and release the rest, release to God.

During my daughter’s health crisis I turned to God for comfort and found it. I was grateful and vowed to be a better man. Like is common among desperate men, I pray to God. I say “Dear Father, I am sorry for all that I have done. Please take care of my family. Help me get through this and be the best father I can be. Help me, please!” I am begging, for mercy, for grace, for relief. I set my alarm for 7:30 am, remembering what I had read about needing to sleep when you are stressed. A miracle occurs, and I fall asleep hard, akin to passing out. As I am in some lucid type state – I can hear and feel myself snoring. I am too tired to move. I finally succumb to sleep!

When I wake next, the panic is there. Maybe I slept for 90-minutes? Fresh from a brief respite it is like my anxieties have come back stronger than before. Thoughts of ruin race through my head. I know these thoughts are only projections, but they seem so real. I begin to have anxious reactions to thoughts about anxious thoughts and so on.

I wish I knew then what I know now.

Hard to believe but that was the state of my days and nights during my dark night of the soul period. The once hard-charging, go-getter, type-A competitive Ego-man, was running out of energy and my nervous system was fraying at the edges. Like the frog in the pot of boiling water that can be boiled alive if the temperature change is gradual enough, I had found myself drowning in my own stress hormones as I tried to contend with so many stressful things. My marriage, my children, my finances, my job and now my health. I felt like I was falling apart and my world was disintegrating before me.

To move on I had to re-integrate my present state. My mind and body were spiraling out of control.

To survive, I could not dwell on the past or fret about the future. The shit I was dealing with was real and immediate.

Somehow I eventually came back to my body from the swirling vortex of my mind to the place and time in which I lay. I was here.

Meanwhile, I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, and I could see the panting ripples of my chest. I could hear the hum of the fan and feel its cold air moving over my body.

My focus intensified until all could contend with was just a breath. One inhale, followed by one exhale. Repeated.

The words echoed Let Go, …Let Go. I would inhale on Let… and then exhale on Go. Let -Go, Let- Go, Let -Go….

I felt as though each breath could be my last when by grace I fell asleep fast.

Peace was found. I surrendered to the now and let things be.

I had stumbled on the way to know the now.

If you want to know how you can know the now and amp-up your life, please sign-up here to be a prime supporter of The Power Of Presence. By doing so you will receive exclusive content and my deepest gratitude. Thank you!

Filed Under: God, Presence, Prime Mover Tagged With: Dark Night, God, Presence, Soul

How To Find Comfort While Living In The Chrysalis Of Change

July 24, 2018 By Julian Kaufmann

Emerging Beauty

Life Is Constantly Evolving and Progressing

Sometimes the changes we experience in life are gradual and almost imperceptible. For example, we may not notice our own aging until we compare photographs taken over several years. Through this perspective of contrast, we can easily note the passing of time and the attendant changes in the subtle transformation that typifies the cyclic nature of life.

Other times, life can seem incredibly destructive, resulting in dramatic transformations. Some type of cataclysmic event occurs and afterward our life is fundamentally altered. A loved one dies, we lose a job, we get divorced. These events are discontinuities and are very disruptive.

The third way of life change we experience is somewhere in the middle between the gradual and destructive. During this type of evolution, we recognize that we are in the midst of something but most of our life seems to be the same,  at least outwardly. We notice that something is different and we may have a vague notion that it is the beginning of the end of the world as we know it. Inwardly we have the awareness of forces affecting us and we feel that we are isolated from the life we know. Something is happening to us and it is of singular impact. It can seem lonely and frightening while being ensconced in this cocoon of change.

Freeing Too Soon

Once upon a time, a small child came upon a butterfly in its cocoon. The child had recently learned about the caterpillar’s life transition into a butterfly and felt sorry for the little creature trapped in the silky chamber. The child with the best intentions decided to free the butterfly from its cocoon. Unfortunately, the now free butterfly was not able to fly as it had not had the time necessary to develop its wing thanks in part to the resistance of the very cocoon the small child had removed it from. The child’s intervention did not allow the full transformation of the butterfly to occur.

If you or a loved one is in the change cocoon, love them while leaving them to undergo their transformations. Have compassion for the situation and trust that the divine forces at work will bring about changes that ultimately reveal the highest form – the highest good. Given time and the right environment, eventually, you, now transformed like the beautiful butterfly, will emerge. In your time, you will spread your wings.  While you are in your chamber remember that the world needs this new version of you. And in time we all will be grateful for the metamorphosis.

Present For The Change

It takes courage to undergo and witness life’s transformative changes. Whether it is you or your loved one, we all at some point will spend some time in the change cocoon. In order to facilitate change, we should strive to be fully present for our selves and our loved ones. Being present, being in the here and now fully, is the cornerstone of optimal experience. I have been studying and practicing ways to encourage more presence in my life – body, mind, and spirit. My next book The Power of Presence –  How To Amp-Up Your Life provides a how-to-guide on showing up at your best. If you would like to be part of the Prime Mover Team and get early, free access to the book and related resources before it is released, please sign up here.

Julian Kaufmann is an energy expert, entrepreneur, and author. Julian helps people get more out of life by applying science and universal spiritual truths to get more done by using less energy.  Julian is here to help turn you on, more brightly, and help you share your light with the world.

Join the next energy revolution by becoming a Prime Mover, Julian’s community of people wanting to do more with less.

Filed Under: Change, Presence, Transformation Tagged With: Change, Chrysalis, Power, Presence

Pain and Gain

May 31, 2016 By Julian Kaufmann

Like a broken tooth, an illness or a divorce, sometimes life has a way of helping you bring your awareness to the present moment.

Pain is the body’s way of letting you know that something needs your attention. When you are hurting your focus is directed to the affected area. Something happens to us that wakes us up and draws our awareness to whatever may be ailing us. We are jolted us up and out of the stupor we may have fallen in to.

It is not necessary however to experience painful disruptive events as the only way to bring your attention to the present moment.

Eckert Tolle encourages us to actively increase our awareness and consciousness in the good times and not just the bad. “So it is essential to bring more consciousness into your life in ordinary situations when everything is going relatively smoothly. In this way, you grow in presence power. It generates an energy field in you and around you of a high vibrational frequency. No unconsciousness, no negativity, no discord or violence can enter that field and survive, just as darkness cannot survive in the presence of light.”

A regular habit of prayer and meditation can help slow the brain down to bring awareness into the present moment.  If we live in the present we allow life and all it’s changes to occur while we remain in equanimity.  Acknowledging the hurt, the grief, the anger, …, THE FEELINGS, and allowing them to flow through your body, reduces their energy.

Mindfulness practices have been shown to have dramatically healthful benefits to those who practice this.

Keeping an open heart while going through painful events can be difficult.

But if we are to grow and learn through these challenging times, it is exactly what we must do.

Filed Under: Be Here, Presence, Uncategorized Tagged With: Acceptance, Gain, Pain, Presence

The 4-Flowgates

May 17, 2016 By Julian Kaufmann

4-flowgates

In my upcoming book Let Go, Let It Flow – a P.A.T.H. to peace and personal power, I present a 4-part framework describing the Flowgates that regulate the amount of Flow (divine life energy) that travels through us.

My theory of conductivity states that we are conductors of God’s energy and that as prime movers we convert God’s energy into our life’s work.  It is my goal to help you be more efficient in this conversion process – to waste less and to produce more.

P.A.T.H. is an acronym for the 4-Flowgates of:

  1. Presence
  2. Acceptance
  3. Thankfulness
  4. Helping

Electricity is one of the 4-fundamental forces of our universe.  And when discussing Flow, we are describing an energy flow that has many properties similar to electricity.

When measuring  the flow of electrical energy, we observe the relative ease of flow of the charged particles – electrons. Electrical resistance is a measure of how difficult it is for the electrons to flow.

The inverse of resistance is conductance, and this measure describes how easy it is to flow.

There is an inverse relationship between resistance and conductance.

As we’ll see, that as resistance goes up, the corresponding conductance goes down. The reverse is true. That as resistance goes down, conductance goes up.

What regulates flow?

If you can imagine turning on a faucet, as you turn on the handle, you open the valve more, so you can get more flow. The video below is taken from my course Flow 101 –What Is It and How to Get More of It.

Right now I am offering this as a Free course.

Please sign up and let me know what you think.

https://juliankaufmann.com/flow-101/

Namaste

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Flow, Flowgates, Uncategorized Tagged With: Acceptance, Helping, Presence, Thankfulness

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