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What was it that led you to lift up this theme for our conversation today, “the dark night of the soul,” re-emergence, and re-calibrating?
I’ve been sitting on it, and the lessons learned, for 10 years, if not longer!
Starting around 15 years ago, there were shifts that were happening to me on a personal, professional and physical level. I didn’t know what was happening.
I was living in Boston, working with parents who were low-income and BIPOC – we had galvanized power. The Mayor and school district called us “Critical Allies” – Allies because we were equally invested in the success of students, and Critical because we knew we could do better, and we could speak truth to power about how we could improve. If I wasn’t doing organizing work around education reform, I was volunteering as a mentor, or as board president of an affordable-housing organizing entity.
I was in a meeting with the Boston Public School District Superintendent – we were pushing to hire a Family Engagement Deputy Superintendent for the entire school system, for the first time.
Earlier that day, I had gotten the call that my father had passed. One of our partners said to me, “What are you doing here? You need to leave.”
I’m sorry for your loss.
Thank you. It was so hard to lose him. Most of my life growing up, my father served in the non-profit sector. When we lived in Guatemala, he created and wrote a book for the education system combining history, English and math, so that poor, indigenous children who couldn’t afford multiple textbooks could have access to that year’s learning.
My father spoke truth to power. He told the truth about land being stolen from indigenous people, the 1% wealthy acquiring land for an agriculture-based economy, forcing so many into poverty.
He was a black Guatemalan, with indigenous, Mayan blood. And as a black man fighting for indigenous rights, he was chased by the Guatemalan government – literally chased with machine guns. So we fled from Guatemala to New Haven, undocumented, when I was about 5. Two of my aunts and my grandmother already lived here. My aunts married African-American military men – they were based in Guatemala, fell in love, and moved to Connecticut and New Haven. So we followed them here.
My father stayed committed to work of purpose. He was on boards, was the executive director for Junta for Progressive Action, and had two other jobs. He began the City’s recycling program – but he was the recycling program. He picked up newspapers across the city, bundled and re-sold them, as a way to give back to the environment, and as a way to raise his five kids.
My father was committed to non-profit; and I saw how it deteriorated him. He didn’t make it to retirement age, didn’t make it to social security. So when he died and I had to have a colleague say, “you need to go home,” I realized I was making the mistakes he made. I was so work-focused, purpose-focused, social justice-focused, defining myself by waking up every day with purpose. I filled my day with it – but didn’t take care of me.
It sounds like a powerful wake-up moment.
I thought it was; I thought I’d take it easy and change jobs. But I didn’t listen. Instead of taking it easy, I founded a statewide nonprofit affiliate – Emerge Massachusetts – that trains women to run for political office. The first cohort was five women running, and all five of them won. Municipal leaders, statewide offices, district-level board of education.
There were volunteers and the founding board, but I was the sole staffer for quite a bit, so I was doing it all: accounting, committees, curriculum development, recruiting women to run, speaking at unions, faith-based communities, wherever there is the passion to make a difference. Studies show that it takes about 8 people to convince one woman to run; whereas for a man, mainly it’s the person in the mirror! So it was a lot of conversations, and hitting the streets. That was my version of taking it easy.
Over the course of about four years, I was more and more exhausted, but still couldn’t sleep well. I was having all kinds of health problems – heart palpitations, hair falling out, dry patches of skin, breaking out in hives. Doctors later found many of my symptoms were because of thyroid issues. I had various surgeries for different things. I felt like a hot mess.
And I still wasn’t taking it easy. I had an office in downtown Boston, and a laptop and mobile phone. One day, I tripped and hurt my knee. I had already had ACL reconstructive surgery, so a swollen knee wasn’t new. I thought, No worries! I brought my laptop and phone home, and knew I could work from home.
I went somewhere to do errands; I fall again, and it’s my other knee; now two swollen knees. Again, No worries! I have my laptop and my cell phone already in the apartment, I’ll just keep working, legs propped up on the bed. Well, my laptop caught on fire!
What’s that saying: god whispers, and if we’re not listening, god talks, and if we’re still not listening, god shouts.
Yes! God was shouting. The laptop started smoking. Then, No worries! I’ll call to get the laptop fixed. And out of the blue my phone died. I didn’t drop it, nothing, nothing, the screen was all of a sudden shot.
I’m in the bed thinking, what am I doing? I’m supposed to be taking it easy. I finally took the wake-up call.
It was a dark night of the soul – knees swollen, at home, my sense of belonging to the world was shattered. Not knowing what my career would look like – I had invested 20 years in nonprofits: three in DC, 17 in Boston. But I’m exhausted. I don’t want to go out like my dad. He gave so much, and got very little back in return. His cup was dry.
I said yes to spirit, and it was very stressful – I didn’t know what my life was going to look like. I needed to find a different way, but if it’s not nonprofit with a sense of purpose, I didn’t know what.
I have such empathy for those feelings and that moment. What emerged for you?
For over 10 years, once a month I had been coming home from Boston to New Haven for a weekend to visit family. I thought I could combine my worlds, work and live in New Haven. In the transition, I wanted to give myself 10 days to take a vacation and do something for me, go on a retreat and learn to meditate. I had been trying to learn to meditate for 10 years – mostly unsuccessfully.
I still didn’t have a laptop, but I got a new phone with the help of a friend. I signed up for a 10-day Vipassana Meditation retreat in Massachusetts, but there was already a waiting list of 100 or so. Knees swollen, in the stress of the not-knowing of transition, I got a call on the new phone from a friend asking me to send my resume as soon as I can. They had just gotten back from a Rotary Exchange in Korea, and there was a trip to India coming up, I should apply. I knew someone who had my resume, and I asked them to send it for me.
About 3 weeks later, my knees are better and I go in for the interview. There were 35 finalists; four were selected, and I was one of the four. I didn’t renew my lease in Boston, and a week later I was on a flight to India for a month and a half. I emailed the Vipassana Meditation group in India, in the hope I could do the 10-day meditation retreat there; and I was accepted!
Four days into the 10-day meditation, I thought I was going crazy. I met with one of the meditation teachers, who said to me: “Heart broken helping people. Rise, aware, release: heart healed. Good things, very good things.” During one of the sessions, I felt a very bright light in me; there was no division between light around me and light in me. I felt God speak to me:
“We are so proud of you, we love you. The information you get is for you to keep, and for you to share.
Why do human beings feel that you have to fix yourselves, that you’re not good enough, that you need to change, that you need to do better, do more, be more, when you were born perfect, you were born beloved.
It is time to remember that you are beloved.
Why, when you do meditation or yoga, you feel that it’s to improve you, when they’re just birthday gifts? You have choices, you get to choose to open the gifts or not. And when you’re given a gift upon your path, why do you think, ‘oh I’m not good enough.’ If a loved one gives you a gift, do you think ‘oh, they’re giving me a message I’m not good enough?’ No, they’re saying ‘I love you.’
So consider the rest of your days of your life a gift, because you are a beloved.”
In India over the month and a half, I lived with 14 different families, traveled in 13 different towns and districts visiting nonprofits and public schools. It was amazing. I was often the only non-family member they had ever had sleep in their home. They told me stories and adopted me like a daughter. The level of love was incredible. It was all so eye-opening, life-changing.
Did your illness, physical symptoms respond as well?
Yes, in so many different ways. I had started treatment for thyroid, but not in the way I wanted – the standard treatment was to issue iodine, which kills off your thyroid, then you have to take meds for the rest of your life. I asked for an alternative, and was told, nope, sorry.
I had a friend from Russia who was like my godmother. She had given me work advice, helped me find an apartment, so when I got back from India, I asked her if she could help me with my thyroid. She said, “I’ve been waiting for you to ask.” Over three months, I did nine sessions of Cosmo energy healing work – therapy that was born in Russia. By the time my appointment with an endocrinologist came for thyroid treatment, the doctor confirmed that I didn’t need it anymore. It’s been over a decade now, and I’m perfectly fine.
It’s powerful to hear about those paths to deep healing. Did it continue when you left Boston and returned to New Haven?
I was still confused, actually, even after all that – what is my greatest purpose? And I eventually realized, it is my very liberation. That is my greatest purpose. Focused on social justice as a liberator – I can’t liberate anyone, we can’t liberate anyone but ourselves. And if we’re not liberated, working on our liberation, then we can’t successfully do all the work out in the world, or raising our kids, or being an auntie, or a grandparent.
Too often, we try to raise up with one hand, and we destroy with the other. Focusing on our own liberation – doing our own work as we extend ourselves out into the world from a liberated, centered self? Oh, man, Heaven on earth is real. It isn’t a figment of our imagination, it can happen.
So today it’s like a dream come true. Three years ago, I purchased a home near my family. My brothers, my sisters, my mom, all close. Manifesting into the world when we’re in alignment with who we are and what our greatest purpose is.
It still shows up in unexpected ways. Right after I got back from India, I was sitting with my laptop in a coffee shop, and someone told me there were reiki sessions being offered upstairs in the same building by a reiki practitioner. I thought, ‘self care? Ok I’ll do it!’ After the session was done, they said, this might sound a little weird to you, but your grandmother is trying to talk to you and you’re not listening. She proceeded to tell me – in detail – the dream I had the night before. So I thought, ‘ok, now I’m listening.’
Have you been able to continue that listening?
Definitely. When I first got back and was working in City Hall, three complete strangers told me out of the blue and separately, that I would have messages for people. I thought, ‘this is the most corporate, social justice nonprofit role I’ve ever played, and this is happening?’
But they were right, and I feel so lucky – I get to share information with people as it relates to where they are on their path to liberation. I feel excitement and I can’t focus other than to share the message that comes through. All while I continue my own internal work on that same path.
How do you think about the dark night of the soul, as it relates to re-emergence or re-calibration towards liberation?
There’s a calling home, when we quiet the fear, the anxiety, the self-criticism and judgment of ‘I’m not doing enough,’ or ‘I should be,’ ‘could’ve been,’ ‘should’ve,’ ‘could’ve’ – when we quiet all that down and we’re just with ourselves, without the ego, that’s when spirit speaks strongly to all of us. So the dark night of the soul is a becoming, it’s a calling home to the home within.
It doesn’t have to happen where accidents happen. It doesn’t have to happen where knees get swollen, and the computer catches on fire and the phone shuts off, or you lose your job or you lose your home. It doesn’t have to be that rough, if we listen. But the majority of humanity, we haven’t listened.
Covid was a massive dark night of the soul. People losing their work, people losing their loved ones. In my case, my father was the first, and three months later was my grandfather.
In the dark night of the soul, often when we confront death, especially a loved one dying or almost close to death, it’s a ‘come home.’ Really evaluate what are your priorities, where do you place the importance? Is it in a job title, the career ladder, how much money I have in the bank? When all that goes away, what are you left with?
Peeling all of that away, to really get to – I am a beloved. It’s almost like you can’t depend on anything outside of you, but what you hold is life itself and how precious it is. And recognizing then, I get to live this life as a sacred gift. If you know that, how would it look any different? Would it look the same, or would it look slightly different knowing it is precious, it is sacred, it is unique, it is a birthday gift that was crafted and made just for me?
Traumas and upheavals, it’s a wake-up call. So the dark night of the soul can sound difficult, but to me, the image that came for me is akin to the butterfly. From a caterpillar stage to a chrysalis; in the chrysalis stage it’s dark. And they’re in a cocoon, it is so painful, taking the cartilage of a caterpillar – it liquifies into mush – from physical form to mush, how painful is that? Unbeknownst to the butterfly, with huge wings that span out and break open the cocoon. The moment before breaking open the cocoon – faith. I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know what’s there for me, all I know is I need to break free.
Liberation, to me, is the highest expression of oneself when one is alive on this earth. And we can’t do it alone. So for me, specifically, when I think of indigenous rights, black, African lineage, ancestral and indigenous people all over the globe, there is a bond with nature. With all of creation, all of life force. That has been made into commodities, separating us from land. Land being stolen from us, us being stolen from land. Reconnecting ourselves to that sacred bond to nature, knowing physically – mind, body, spirit – we belong on this earth, this is home. If we treat it as such, how would it look differently?
Liberation is tied to our social well-being as a collective. We cannot fix this world until we come home within, to ourselves, to the land, to all of life, including each other.
What does that look like? When I choose to walk into the room, or someone else walks into a room, it won’t be my trauma showing up first. When I engage with a stranger, friend or colleague, it won’t be my ego and insecurities that drive. Liberated self does not need to commodify and destroy the earth to make money.
So, until we come home, we’re going to have a lot of social upheavals. When people come to me looking for support, it ends up being related to liberation. I’m at the stage of my life where I feel so blessed to work with CEIO, other nonprofits and businesses that are seeking support, and it’s all focused around liberation. It’s really exciting.
One of my siblings said, ‘don’t tell anyone this, they’re going to think you’re crazy.’ And I think, I’ve met so many people – maybe I was the first person who admitted it, but they’ve also heard spirit, or God, speak to or through them. And I can say, ‘you’re not crazy, you’re being called home. It’s a deep remembrance.
My family reminds me that it all sounds quirky to them, but I put myself through Boston College and Harvard University School of Education. I can be very straight-edged, focused and logical, and quirky too.
I hear you. One of my top core values is integrity – not just in the sense of honesty, but also being in alignment with all of who we are.
It’s hard to say ‘you’re not enough, you need to buy this’ or fear-driven ‘you need to buy this,’ when you’re in alignment. I would even go as far to say the global economy is based on fear. So when you have more people in alignment within, things are going to change in ways we have only dreamt of.
A lot of the folks in CLP, we consider ourselves justice warriors, or co-creators of a more just world. But if we’re not doing the work inside, we’re not going to get far, and our batteries are going to run dry. And when you do the internal work, your outside work in the world can look the same, but your batteries are filled, you’re overflowing. That’s the shift, the major shift.
I relate to that; and to all the learning waiting within the dark nights of the soul.
Yes. Each dark night of the soul feels so different – and each one not as scary as the first. In each dark night of the soul I wasn’t scared, I felt held. It’s kind of like going to a chiropractor – the first time you crack like crazy. And then you go in for minor adjustments, you know how to navigate, the next dark nights are less intense; let’s make an adjustment.
If you really listen to the fears that come up, you can learn much. Where did it come from, how long have you been holding it, when was the first time you felt it, how has that created a pattern of the way you live your life? If you didn’t hold that fear, if you listen to the hard emotions, what lessons do they teach? It’s time to give them permission to be heard.
All they want to do is be heard, to teach. Once you listen, you learn and you keep moving. That’s what it does for me. Slowed me down to listen to those emotions, heavy stuff that I kept putting under. In the dark night of the soul, spirit is calling you home.
Learn more about Caprice and her consulting work in liberation, organizational development and community building via LinkedIn, CEIO, Facebook, Instagram, and La Voz Hispana de Connecticut on WNHH 103.5FM
To reach Caprice directly: capricet@gmail.com