Dark Work in Action (Part V)
Black and white photo of a cloaked figure walking through a foggy forest. The motion blur evokes transformation, emergence, and the descent journey. Symbolic of dark work, embodiment, and becoming.
Dark work is not a concept to simply understand. It is a path to walk, an ongoing practice of descent, destruction, and rebirth. This is not about self-improvement or even healing in the way we’ve been taught to think of it. Dark work is about stepping into the raw forces of death and regeneration, making contact with the unknown, and allowing what must die to fall away. It is the work of staying present in the void, of navigating loss, of honoring the wisdom that arises from the depths rather than clinging to surface-level narratives of light and resolution.
To be in the dark is to be in the body: back in the cave, in the realm of instinct, sensation, and truth deeper than words. The mind seeks clarity, resolution, and external validation, but the body speaks in the language of sensation: contraction, expansion, tension, release. It tells us when something is not right, a visceral hard no, or when something is aligned in a way that reverberates through every cell. A full body yes. Learning to listen to these signals, and more than that, to trust them without needing logical justification, is at the core of dark work.
There comes a moment in dark work when you recognize that you can no longer stay in spaces that drain you. Relationships that once felt familiar begin to feel suffocating. The roles you’ve played no longer fit. The patterns that kept you safe now feel like cages. This is when the hard no emerges—not from the mind’s analysis, but from the body’s deep refusal.
For me, this meant walking away from relationships that had been in my life for decades. A 42-year-old friendship. An eight-year romantic partnership. Other connections that I once assumed would always be there. I stayed for a long time because I thought longevity meant intimacy. But when I finally listened to my body, I felt the truth: these relationships were no longer nourishing me, and when I got honest with myself lacked the reciprocity I needed. I left not because I wanted to, but because staying was no longer an option. The pain of remaining outweighed the fear of leaving.
The hard no is rarely easy. It often requires destruction, a severing, an unraveling, a letting go. It can look like setting boundaries that others don’t understand, making choices that disrupt the status quo, or stepping away from identities that once defined us. But this destruction is sacred. It clears the space for what is truer to emerge.
If the hard no is about release, the full body yes is about stepping forward with clarity and conviction. It is not an intellectual decision but an embodied recognition. A resonance. A felt sense of rightness that moves through the body like a deep exhale.
Dark work teaches us to recognize this yes and trust it, even when it defies logic, even when it disrupts what we thought we wanted. This is the difference between forcing something to happen and allowing it to unfold. The full body yes doesn’t grasp, it flows. It aligns you with something larger, something ancient, something true.
To live this way means reshaping our lives from the inside out. Relationships shift. Work transforms. Self-expression deepens. Not because we are trying to make those changes happen, but because when we embody dark work, anything that is not in resonance naturally falls away.
This path is not easy. It requires continuous surrender to what is real, not what is comfortable. It demands a willingness to stand at the edge of the abyss and step forward anyway. But the reward is something that cannot be taken away: a relationship with the deepest self, one that is rooted in truth, not conditioning.
When we stop seeking external validation and start listening to the wisdom of the body, we become untamed. Unstoppable. This is why dark work is dangerous to the status quo. It breaks us free from the systems that keep us disconnected from our power. It brings us back to the cave, back to the body, back to the dark. And in that darkness, we find something truer than light: we find ourselves.
Because dark work lives in the body, integrating somatic practices can help us move through it more deeply. These are not prescriptions or formulas, just invitations to explore your own relationship with the dark.
Move with the Darkness: Choose a piece of music that feels like it lives in the underworld. Put it on and let your body move to feel. What shapes does grief make? How does rage move through you? What gesture feels like a hard no? What movement carries your yes?
Cave Practice (Rest in the Dark): Find a dark, quiet space. It could be a literal closet, a room with the lights out, or even lying under a blanket. Let yourself drop in. Breathe low into your belly. Ask: "What is asking to die? What am I afraid to see?" Let the dark speak.
Threshold Ritual: Stand at a literal threshold—a doorway. Behind you: what is ending. Ahead of you: what is unknown. Speak aloud a goodbye. Step forward with intention. Notice what arises in your body as you cross.
Hard No / Full Body Yes Check-In: Sit quietly. Bring to mind a situation where you’re unsure what to do. Say the option aloud: "I will stay." Notice your body’s response. Then: "I will leave." Which one contracts you? Which one breathes you open?
A Personal Journey
Dark work is not something I could have intellectually constructed or planned. When I began, I wasn’t ready to release what no longer served me—be it relationships, careers, roles, or identities. I clung to what I thought should be there, trying to force clarity. But when the hard no emerged, what I needed most was to trust the destruction. To let go, even when it felt impossible
And when the hard no came, it often required the sacrifice of parts of me that I held dear. The pain of that release has been immense. But what I have learned through this process is the power of the void. This space between what was and what is yet to be. When I sit with this uncertainty, not scrambling for answers but letting myself simply be with the unknown, something new always emerges. And as it emerges, I find my full body yes. I feel it in my bones, my heart, my soul. The pull to move forward, to step into something that feels more aligned, more true, even when I have no idea where it’s leading me.
This process of release and emergence is a dance. A constant interplay of surrendering and moving toward the pull of what feels aligned. The beauty of dark work is that it is not about creating from the mind, but about embodying what is unfolding. It is not a conceptual process, but a lived one. A process of becoming.
I used to struggle with the fear of the unknown, trying to plan everything out and make sense of it. But now, I understand that the hard no is a gift, even in its pain. It teaches me to trust the process, to surrender to the wisdom of my body, and to release what I no longer need. It is a practice that has deepened my ability to navigate uncertainty, to live in the void, and to embrace the discomfort that arises when we are faced with the unknown.
And the full body yes? It is what I am stepping into. It is not about what I think I should do, but about what I feel called to do from a deep place of embodied knowing. The more I listen to this, the more I become the person I am meant to be.
As I look back at my journey, if anyone had told me even five years ago that I would be living my life in this way, working from this place, I would have not believed them It’s hard to imagine where this path will take me, but I trust that it will lead me where I need to go. And the more I walk this path, the more I realize how much power lies in embracing the unknown and trusting the darkness.
When we engage in dark work, we begin to embody the trust that comes from letting go of our attachment to outcomes. It's a revolutionary act. Every time we honor the hard no, we say to conditioning, to societal expectations, and to the systems that keep us small, "No, I will not live according to your rules." And with every full body yes, we move toward a deeper truth that aligns us with our truest essence.
The more we embody this work, the more unstoppable we become. We step into our power, and we no longer seek external validation. We know ourselves deeply. We become a force of nature, unwavering in our commitment to the truth of our bodies and our spirits. We learn to trust the unknown, to live with uncertainty, and to find our way through the void. This is dark work in action.
Before you go, I invite you to pause and turn inward. These questions are here to help you feel into your own relationship with dark work—not as theory, but as lived experience.
What is your body trying to tell you right now? Where do you feel contraction? Where do you feel openness? What truth might live inside those sensations? What would it mean to trust your body’s signals without needing to justify them?
2. What are you being asked to release, even if you don’t feel ready? What patterns, roles, or relationships are quietly asking to be let go? What would it take to honor your hard no, even in the face of fear or uncertainty?
3. What does your full-body yes feel like? Can you recall a moment when something just clicked—even if you couldn’t explain it? How does your yes move through your body? Where are you being invited to move toward it now?
A Call to Action
If you've made it through this journey with me, or if this is the first piece you've read in my Dark Work series, I want to extend an invitation:
If you’re feeling the pull into the art of becoming…
If you’re ready to get in tune with your full-body yes and hard no…
If you’re ready to live from embodied truth and strip away the conditioning that’s held you back…
I offer one-on-one support for those ready to walk the dark path with intention.
Start here if you’re new to this work:
Embers to Flames
Go deeper with me through immersive dark work:
Tending the Roots
These are spaces of transformation—not to fix you, but to support you in becoming more of who you already are.
Reach out if you’re ready. Let’s walk this together.
You don’t have to do it alone.
In embodied truth,
Alexandra Winteraven🖤
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