The Dark Night of My Soul: How Tarot Brought Me Back

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It was 3 AM, and I was sitting on my bathroom floor, crying so hard I couldn’t breathe.

I had just ended a relationship that I thought would be my forever. The walls I had carefully built around my heart came crashing down, and I was left with nothing but rubble and silence. I felt hollow. Lost. Like I had been walking through life with a map that led nowhere.

I didn’t know it then, but I was in what mystics call the dark night of the soul, a period of deep spiritual desolation, where everything you once believed in falls apart, and you’re left in the void. No light. No direction. Just pain.

And somehow, through the cracks of that darkness, tarot found me.

I wasn’t searching for spirituality. I wasn’t one of those people who had a mystical awakening in a meditation retreat. I was just a heartbroken woman scrolling through YouTube at 3 AM, desperate to feel something other than grief.

That’s when I stumbled across a tarot reading. A stranger on the internet was pulling cards and talking about heartbreak, betrayal, and new beginnings. I don’t even remember what she said. But I remember how I felt, like someone out there understood what I was going through.

I started watching more. Then I bought a deck. I didn’t know what I was doing; I just needed something to hold onto.

The First Time I Read for Myself

The first time I pulled cards for myself, I was terrified. I was afraid the cards would confirm what I already feared, that I was broken, unlovable, and destined to be alone.

But instead, I pulled the Star. A card of hope, healing, and divine guidance. I didn’t believe it at first. Hope felt like a luxury I couldn’t afford.

But I kept pulling cards. Day after day. Sometimes just one card. Sometimes a full spread. And slowly, painfully slowly, something shifted. I wasn’t just asking “Will he come back?” anymore. I started asking, "What do I need to heal?” and ”What am I being called to let go of?”

The cards didn’t give me easy answers. But they gave me permission to ask the hard questions.

What Tarot Taught Me in My Darkest Hour

1. That pain is not punishment. I thought I was being tested, like I had done something wrong and was being punished. But the cards showed me that sometimes, the universe breaks things that were never meant to hold. The pain wasn’t a curse; it was a call to rebuild.

2. That I wasn’t alone. I was physically alone on that bathroom floor. But spiritually? I felt held. Supported. Seen. Tarot became a bridge between me and the universe, between what I could see and what I could only feel.

3. That healing is not linear. Some days I pulled the Sun and felt on top of the world. Other days I pulled the Tower and felt like everything was collapsing again. Tarot taught me that healing doesn’t happen overnight and that every step, no matter how small, matters.

4. That the cards reflect what’s already inside me. I used to think tarot was about predicting the future. But I learned that the cards are just mirrors; they reflect what you already know but aren’t ready to admit. The truth was already in me. I just needed permission to see it.

From Darkness to Purpose

I didn’t become a tarot reader overnight. In fact, it took me years of practising, failing, learning, and crying before I felt confident enough to read for others. But looking back, every tear, every sleepless night, and every painful card pull, it was all part of a journey. A painful but necessary one.

If you had told me back then that I would one day be guiding others through their dark nights, I wouldn’t have believed you.

But here I am.

Because I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to feel like you’re drowning, to wake up with a heavy chest, to question everything about yourself. And I know what it’s like to be led back, slowly, not always gently, but graciously.

If You’re Going Through Your Dark Night Right Now

I need you to know something. This is not the end. I know it feels like it. I know you’re exhausted, you’re angry, you’re scared, and you probably feel like you’re going crazy.

But sometimes the dark night is the birthing process. It’s painful, messy, and uncertain, but when the dawn comes, it brings a version of you that’s stronger, wiser, and more real.

So pull a card for yourself, even if you’ve never done it before. Not to predict your future, but to connect with your own voice. Not to get answers, but to remember that you’re still asking questions. And that matters.

Tarot didn’t save me. It woke me up. And maybe that’s the same thing.

I still remember that bathroom floor and the girl who sat there crying.

She had no idea that in a few years, she would be holding space for others the way the cards held space for her. She had no idea that her broken heart would become her softest, strongest gift.

But she kept pulling cards. She kept believing, even when the belief felt paper-thin.

And that was enough.

✨ The night has been long, but the Sun always rises. And so will you. ✨